Partition Tragedy

 Partition Tragedy 

Partition tragedy was basically a problem of human nature. Fear, greed and power hunger govern their acts. Husband rules over the wife and master rules over his servants/subject. When ‘sword’ was the ‘order’ and ‘religion’ was the ‘law’, minorities were ruling over the majority. The religion of the King was the religion of his subjects/people. For safety against the fear of losses/death and greed of taking advantage (land, job, resource, power), the subjects always surrendered to the winners. It was ‘Jungle Raj’.

Humans were fearful against the natural calamities and therefore started worshipping natural elements of wind God, rain God, the Sun, the Moon, the Earth etc. And the few intellect while searching for the truth from the astronomy of the world, brought out some secrets of the nature and then the fight of ‘what is TRUTH’ started. Pontius Pilate asked the same question to Jesus but he didn’t reply. 

Indian subjects were ruled by minorities whether by Brahmin-Kshatriya King or Buddhist Sadhu-Samrat or Maulavi-Sultan. Inequality of humans by birth was the governance principle of the ancient India. Buddhist brought the concept of equality and non violence to bring peace in the society. During the rule of Samrat Ashok many of the suppressed communities embraced Buddhism. The present day Pakistan and Afghanistan were Buddhist lands. Buddhism was in practice before Gautam Buddha as he was the 28th Buddha (enlightened) in the series. 

After the fall of Maurayan Empire, the power again went to the Hindu Law and Order. Let’s walk fast in the history. Raja Dahir was a Hindu King of Sindh but his subjects were Buddhists. There was an issue of disruption of Muslim Shipping off the Sindh coast by the pirates. Under the order of Caliph, Arab Muhammad Bin Qasim, a 17 years old boy in his teenage led the Muslim conquest over Sindh and Multan with the help of few thousand Mawalis in 711. The Buddhist majority was against the King. Ultimately, Raja Dahir was killed in the battle and the first Muslim rule was established over the land. From 8th century to 1947, the land of present day Pakistan was ruled by Kabul or Delhi (except the Short tenure of Raja Ranjit Singh from Lahore) but was mostly under the commands of the Muslims. The Buddhists and the unequal Hindus then embraced Islam and they became the majority over the area. Many on Indian continent thereafter converted to Islam during 1000 years Muslim rule for many reasons including saving of lives and dignity of women, acquire equality, get employment, save power and perks, save kingdom, etc. 

Muslim ruled the country for 1000 years and when British took over they had no unrest with them as the Indian Army had 40% Muslim Soldiers and the Muslim Princely States were in happy relations with the British. 

When freedom struggle started, democracy was slowly initiated through British Acts. Muslims realised their position in future as a minority subjects under the majority rule. And therefore, started demanding rights for the minorities. To win their support Congress (Tilak) committed first mistake of signing Lucknow Pact (October 1916) with Muslim League (Jinnah), agreed for separate electorate. Gandhi committed mistake by supporting Khilafat (religious) Movement (safeguard Caliph) in August 1920 and launched Non Cooperation Movement in September 1920. And later made Muhammad Ali Jauhar the President of Congress in 1923 (for few months), who was a founding member of Muslim League and one time President of Muslim League (1918). Congress was trying for the settlement and it was turning into appeasement. Jinnah was sailing in two boats: Congress and Muslim League. Gandhi took over his seniority and when his minority voice was overlooked, he left Congress, went to London, did good practice, earned name and developed union with British. Umpire British later used Jinnah and Dr Ambedkar to counter the freedom struggle lead by Gandhi. However, secular face of Congress was popular amongst the masses and therefore, they won 1937 provincial elections and secured majority in all provinces including the Muslim majority areas. Unfortunately, they resigned in 1939 against British decision of joining India in WW-II without their consent. And when Gandhi and Congress launched Quit India movement, they put all their leaders into the jails for three years. In that vacuum Jinnah became a political heavyweight. The first man leave British Jail was Mahatma Gandhi. He lost his PS Mahadev Desai and wife Kasturba in Agakhan Palace Pune, and suffered a serious illness for which Churchill was awaiting his departure from the world. But he was released in 1944. It was not recorded but the strange conduct of Gandhi visiting Jinnah’s house for a fortnight in September 1944 and negotiating unity of India under CR formula, indicates some negotiation with the British authorities before his release. 

Indian budget was a burden over UK budget and they were burden over US budget, and therefore, there was pressure from US President Roosevelt to grant independence to India. Indian Army was the biggest strength of UK. Initially, British Generals of Arm Forces were in favour of United India but Cabinet Mission Plan of Weak Centre and Powerful Provinces was not a workable option for Congress and Jinnah was not ready to work under Powerful Central Goverment of majority Hindus. It was a deadlock. At this junction, under British patronage, Jinnah played the Communal Card. The Provincial Elections were held in 1945-1946. Muslim fielded the Maulavis and Ulemas and entire campaign was conducted on religious line with Islamic slogans. Muslim League, which lost 1937 provincial elections very badly, won 87% seats of Muslim reserve. But in a Muslim majority (53%) State of Punjab, it couldn’t win majority. Jinnah the man talked about constitutional means during whole of his life, started talking constitution in one hand and pistol in another, injected violence in the game. It was do or die for them to get independent nation. He launched ‘Direct Action’. Finally, after communal violences and killing of hundreds innocents, Partition was agreed upon by INC and AIML, keeping Gandhi away from the negotiation. Once the partition award was declared, the anger of people outburst. They were not in the control of their leaders. The anger multiplied with the greed of land, money and wealth made them cannibals. It was a revengeful civil war for five months killing 800000 people, abduction of 100000 women and displacement of 1.5 million population. The fire of communal violence ceased with the sacrifice of Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi’s ‘TRUTH is God’ lost. 

Punjab and Bengal were divided and Muslim majority districts were given to Pakistan. Gilgit Baltistan was on lease under the command of British and Muslim troops. The Maharaja of J&K couldn’t recover though the lease expired on 15 August 1947. Kabalis with the support of Pakistani army attacked over Kashmir, but with the efforts of Gandhi, Nehru, Menon and Mountbatten, Maharaja signed the accession deed and the State of J&K was protected with the loss of Gilgit Baltistan and POK. Then comes the dispute of Muslim ruler signature of joining Pakistan for a Hindu majority state of Junagadh and Hindu ruler signature of joining India for a Muslim majority state of J&K. If Kashmir was divided like Punjab and Bengal, following the LoC, the dispute would’ve been dead. But it lead us in war four times (1947, 1965, 1971, 1999). 

The word Kafir was used first for the inhabitants of Mecca. They were idol worshippers and were not accepting Muhammad as Prophet. After the battle of Badr, the campaign of ‘what is TRUTH’ again started and went on endlessly, killing millions on earth in the name of religion. 

Law (religion) whether Islam or Hindu are bad till they act against humanity. For social life individual faith and customs may be respected till they don’t harm the general well-being of the society. But in practice, the Constitution written by the people’s representative is the best which follows the principles of Equality, Liberty, Justice and Fraternity. 

Punamchand 

23 May 2020