28/12/2015 – LECTURE 2 – PARITION (1)

The Idea of “PASKSTAN”

1933 i.e. a decade before the birth of India, a Cambridge University student – Chaudhary
Rahmad Ali wrote a series of papers. These became very popular in Cambridge. These were
talking about Muslims in India constitute the North Western parts of the country. The
regions which he named formed an acronym.

P – Punjab

A – Afghan Provinces

K – Kashmir

S – Sindh

Baluchistan - TAN

He puts a sense of urgency and calls the paper Now or Never by means of saying that he was
concerned about these regions which could be threatened due to an overwhelming Indian
Identity. The “I” was added for two reasons. Easy pronunciation, and because “Paki” means
pure. This is where the idea of a geographical division of Muslim India is born. The oddity in
the scenario is that he does not mention easy Bengal/Bangladesh which had a HUGE
population of Muslims. On the actual creation of Paskitan, Pakistan gets the 5 provinces he
mentioned as well as East Bengal.

Maulana Iqbal came up with the song Saare Jahan Se Acha and his memoirs come up with
very interesting and compelling stories because he too found himself in an ideological
conflict. Who does he owe allegiance to? Till 1910 – he is extremely patriotic. He goes on a a
tour till as far as Iraq, and on coming back in 1915 – he comes up with a different discourse
speaking of an Islamic Caliphate. The whole purpose of Islam he says is not to have
boundaries. You cannot have one such place or country for Muslims because that goes
against what Islam says. He also suggests that all the republics in central Asia should dissolve
their political boundaries. However obviously, no country was even willing to think along
these terms. Iqbal is deeply bothered. As years go by, he idea of a separate state for
Muslims kept growing and by 1933 this idea gained immense relevance. The paper of
“PAKSTAN” also seemed to suggest a geographical location for the same.

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Class Question/Doubt: If the people did not know how to read and write, then how did the
idea of PAKSTAN from the paper “Now or Never” spread in the masses?

Answer: The Muslim league was born in 1910 to primarily serve the needs of Muslims in
Bengal. Soon it became a nationwide phenomena. The INC was then seen as a party serving
rights of the Hindu’s. People like Ambedkar headed different groups such as the Dalits.
Gandhi was one man who the masses listened to. Gandhi and Ambedkar too had a clash on
the stance of Dalits. Ambedkar wanted the country to be 100% secular and did not want to
be known as “harijan” or anything different, but the same did not make sense to Gandhi.
The Muslim League began to take inspiration and ideas from Chaudhary’s paper, and it
transcended from these Muslim League leaders to the masses. Following this, the fear in the
Muslim’s minds that they would lose their identity was crystallizing in people’s minds.

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Jinnah
Jinnah was known as the Qaede-Azam. The term Qaeda means “Law-Giver”. The idea
behind giving him this title was to say that he was the person who set the precedence of
Pakistan. He also served as Pakistan’s Governor General for a short span post independence.

Britain Pull Out Plan

Following WW2 – Britain was bankrupt and specially after the whole war was fought against
Germany on the basis of imperialism, they now had to pull out from their colonies.
However, this would obviously cause tremendous chaos because pulling out would ask the
question – who is the power handed over to when they leave in case of multiple groups?
India off course presented a unique problem. The Muslims were in minority, but before the
British, the Mughals would rule India. There was an idea that that power play would be re-
stored. In 1857 – the sepoy mutiny had done the same very briefly. The Muslim league was
also suggesting the same, but because there was no monarchy – power had to go via
democracy. If it was to go via democracy, there would have to be two countries.

Lord Mountbatten
The partition would be extremely messy, and somebody who was a third person and could
take objective decisions had to be brought in. They brought in the last viceroy to India –
Lord Mountbatten. He has war experience and has been a military general, and is expected
to do a good job. He was told that he has till 1948 to pull out because justifying colonialism
was becoming next to impossible. On reaching India he finds out that the situation is much
worse than projected. He decides to fast forward the schedule.

He came at the end of 1946, see’s the conditions and decides to pull out in 15/08/1947. This
suddenly puts too many things into overdrive. Obviously people were going to get hurt in
the process. Mountbatten also says that the british would leave on the said date, no matter
what, with no responsibility for any strife that would follow. The same was very similar to
what the British did in Israel. The British wanted an aristocratic ceremony and farewell, but
wanted to keep away from the carnage which was unavoidable.
Mountbatten began pulling out British troops, and then the envoys. It was this
haphazardness which lead to the partition carnage and riots.

BBC DOCUMENTARY
Mountbatten’s Mistake
Mountbatten tried to be personal and informal with everybody, to bring them at ease with
him. He would try to make it appear to all groups that he was on their side. He failed to
calculate that these groups of people which seemed politically divided, did speak to each
other and would share things with each other. Appearing favourable to both sides was
actually something which would set both parties off. They began getting suspicious.

Princely States Decision

In may 1947 he drops the first bombshell. He held a meeting with all the Princes of India and
clearly mentioned that their future depended upon this meeting. Without any interaction he
said that partition was going to happen, and you would either join India or Pakistan, for
which you would also have to take into consideration geography. You will have to sign to
abdicate your throne. The royalty thought that none of them would be affected but were
shocked to hear this. They would be given 60,000 one time, following which they were to
become common men.

Rushing Partition
Post this he says that they are quitting in 3 months from now. He calls a British Barrister –
Sir Radcliffe. He is called to designate what would constitute Pakistan. Even today the
border of India-Pak is called the Radcliffe line. He was given maps, and was told to create
the demarcation. He was using data from 1909 and a lot of things had changed since then.
Mountbatten’s weekly conferences were heavily covered in media and right behind his head
there was a calendar with a backward counting watch. This triggered extreme panic because
each day was now momentous. 15/08/1947 Britain pulled out, Mountbatten stayed back for
a period. However, the actual line was declared only on 17th. This meant that there were
some people who were on the wrong side after having celebrated independence. The
Lakshadweep Islands were actually conquered by race. India sends in troops from Chennai
and Pakistan from Karachi. Hence, obviously India won the islands.