Introduction
On August 15, 1947 British rule in India came, after almost two hundred years, to an end. On June 3 1947 it became clear that the former British Indian Empire would not only become independent, it would also be partitioned into two separate nations: India and Pakistan. The division was made along religious lines. The areas with a majority of Muslims became Pakistan (including East-Pakistan, which became Bangladesh in 1971); the area with a majority of Hindus became India. Two provinces, Bengal in the east and Punjab in the west, could not easily be divided. These provinces had a mixed population of Hindus and Muslims, without a clear minority or majority of one of the two. The majority of India’s Sikhs was also living in Punjab. In a short period of six weeks, the borders in these provinces had to be drawn. The British judge Cyril Radcliffe was appointed to lead the commissions that would draw the borders between India and Pakistan in Bengal and Punjab. He did not have time to visit the places where the border would be and based his decisions on an outdated census, comparing statistical proportions of Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs. The borders were only made public on August 17, two days after independence. They zigzagged through the provinces without taking into account the present infrastructure, such as railways and roads. Industrial plants were cut off of their resources and communities could no longer reach their sacred pilgrimage sites. Suddenly millions of people became a minority if they were Hindus or Sikhs living in the area that now was Pakistan, or if they were Muslims living in the area that now was India. Though official policies stated that minorities were free to stay in their country, many people decided to migrate. Some migrated out of ideological reasons, others because they feared for their lives. The Partition was accompanied by excesses of ethnic violence. Groups of Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims attacked each other’s villages and refugees. Neither of the two new countries had the power to maintain order. Estimates of the number of victims vary between roughly 200,000 and two million. Furthermore, approximately twelve to fifteen million people migrated and hundreds of thousands of women, often of a very young age, were abducted, abused through rape or physically molested.
It sounds paradoxical that the peaceful transition of power was accompanied by violence on such a large scale. Even though there had been ethnic violence of some sort in most of India’s history, the scale of these outbreaks of violence was unprecedented. Therefore, I will examine the following main question: How can the violence occurring during the period of Partition in India be explained? I will answer this question by focussing on three levels of analysis: the national or state level, the regional level and the local level. The period that is taken into account spans the time from August 16, 1946, “Direct Action Day” until the death of Mahatma Gandhi on January 30, 1948. These dates are chosen because they cover most of the violence in relation to the Partition. Although there were outbreaks of violence before Direct Action Day, the Calcutta Killings that followed this day were the first major acts of violence, resulting in thousands of deaths. The death of Gandhi is chosen as the end of the period because the number of violent riots dropped significantly after he was assassinated.
The Partition of India and Pakistan was a major historical event for the three countries most involved: India, Pakistan and the British Empire. Historians from these three countries wrote a large number of articles and books from the 1940s onwards about the Partition. Especially the earlier studies often serve a nationalistic goal: trying to explain that partition, despite its deadly outcomes, was the inevitable outcome of independence. For example, early Pakistani historians used the Two Nation Theory to ‘prove’ this inevitability. More recent studies on the Partition are in general primarily concerned with the question of political outcomes on an national level, but do also take the social and economic context into account, contrary to the earlier studies. Quite a few studies put emphasis on the influence of individuals such as Nehru, Jinnah and Mountbatten. For example, Stanley Wolpert wrote a critical book about the role of the British Empire, blaming Viceroy Lord Mountbatten for the quick retreat of the British. Though his critical view is a welcome addition to the British literature on Partition, his emphasis on the importance of the role of the political elites is generally seen as exaggerated.
Most of the writings by pro-Indian and pro-Pakistani historians that focus specifically on the violence of the Partition, especially in the first decades after the Partition, arewere aimed at providing a justification of how the violence of the Partition goes against the fundamentals of Indian (or Pakistani) tradition and history. The violence of the Partition is in most studies treated as something given, and the question why it occurred is rarely asked. Research on the violence is most of the time limited to descriptions of outbreaks of violence. Attempts to explain the violence are uncommon. This makes it an interesting object of research.
Most of the primary sources, such as letters between the political leaders’ involved, local newspapers and official reports are only available in archives in India and Pakistan. Not being able to visit these archives, I amwas limited to the primary sources that are available online. These consisted mainly of the personal stories of refugees and other victims of the violence. These stories are were useful to illustrate the forms the violence took and how perceptions of “the other” changed. These stories are were also useful to show the consequences of a sense of insecurity and general confusion on an individual level. The limitations of personal stories is that they only deal with the violence on an individual level. One could use these sources to draw general conclusions about the Partition only by systematically analysing hundreds or thousands of these stories. I only useused these sources to illustrate how the violence affected people on a local scale, since I do not have the means to analyse a large number of these stories.
Besides personal stories, there is a fairly large number of documents made available by the British national archives and the British Library, including official documents such as the Independence Act and speeches and letters of influential important individuals like Jinnah and Nehru. I useused these sources to get a better understanding of the policies that influenced the scale of violence from a top-down perspective.
Besides primary sources, I used books and articles written by historians to get an understanding of the context. As presented in the historiography, there has been written a lot about the Partition. I focused mainly on “The Great Partition” by Yasmin Khan and “Remembering Partition: Violence, Nationalism and History” by Gyanendra Pandey.” Both books are regarded as important studies of the Partition. I also taketook into account, among other studies, chapter five “somatic texts and the gender of Partition” of Jisha Menon’s book “the performance of nationalism: India, Pakistan and Partition” chapters seven “From Simla conference to Partition” and eight “concluding remarks” in D.N. Panigrahi’s book “India’s Partition: The story of imperialism in retreat” and chapter three “partition and migration” of Joya Chatterji’s “Spoils of Partition.”These studies deal with different aspects of the Partition. For example, Jisha Menon emphasises the violence against women, and Joya Chatterji focusses on the Bengal area. I taketook the information they provided about the violence of the Partition into account when analysing this violence.
I also useused theories from the field of conflict studies. An example is the security dilemma theory, referring to a situation in which a state or a group of people enhances its (military) security in fear of another state or group of people. The other state or group might react with similar measures, which leads to increasing tensions. This might ultimately lead to conflict, in a situation in which neither of the parties might have had conflict in mind in the first place. Theories such as the security dilemma theory helped me to further analyse the violence of the Partition.
Terminology
I use the term “Partition” to describe the event that happened on the 14th of August, 1947. I use the term “partition” to describe the period from the moment the divide of India into two separate nations was announced until the death of Ghandhi
In the following chapters, I will give a broader context of the violence and analyse the violence on three different levels: the national level, the regional level and the local level. At the national level, I will take into account how the violence of the Partition was influenced from above. I’ll focus on the roles of the governments, the British government in India until August 15, 1947 and the Indian and Pakistani government from that day onwards. I will pay attention to how the creation of the borders, the lack of a strong state, the British wish to speed up the transitions and other elements all had an effect on the violence.
After this, I will move on to the regional and individual level. On the regional level, the focus will be on the role that gangs and regional sections of political and religious groups had in the violence. I will discuss topics such as the sense of insecurity and the changing perceptions of “the other” on an individual level. I will get to a better understanding of the violence of the Partition by taking the national, regional and individual level of analysis into account. Concluding remarks will be presented in the conclusionafterwards.
Chapter One – The violence of the Partition explained from a state-level perspective
1.1 Introduction
In this chapter, the violence of the Partition is seen from a state level perspective. I will look at how the acts of the political elites and the governments of the British Indian Empire and the independent states of India and Pakistan influenced the violence. I focus on two main issues that enhanced the possibility of outbreaks of violence. In the first part, I discuss the ethnic geography of partition: how the institutionalisation of ethnicity and symbolism contributed to the perspective that ethnic groups were unchangeable entities, which contributed to a higher risk of violence. In the second part, I discuss how the quick transition from a British colony into two independent states and the reorganisation of the army made India and Pakistan weak states, and how this also contributed to a higher risk of violence. These issues are chosen because weak states and ethnic geography are seen as two of the three main structural factors that can explain the underlying causes of intra-state conflict. The third main structural factor, intra-state security concerns, is discussed in relation to the reorganisation of the Indian Army because the lack of a functional army both weakened the states of India and Pakistan and heightened the possibility of violence.
1.2 Ethnic geographyThe institutionalisation of ethnicity and symbolism
1.2.1 Institutionalisation of ethnicity
There were two major religions in the British Indian Empire: Hinduism and Islam. Beside this, there were several minor religions. At the end of World War II, there were roughly 300 million Hindus, 100 million Muslims, 6 million Sikhs and a small number of Buddhists, Christians and Jews. Marrying within the own group was strongly promoted and there was an emphasis on own histories and myths. The British Raj, the British rule in India had been promoting the differences between ethnic groups by institutionalising these differences both in social life and in politics. For example, drinking taps at train stations were often labelled ´Hindu-water’ and ‘Muslim-water.’ In politics, separate electorates were given to the different religious groups. These regulations contributed to a process in which social identities were turned from changeable to unchangeable. This process is called reification.
Ethnic groups are often treated as the protagonists of ethnic conflict. However, the main protagonists of most ethnic conflicts are not ethnic groups as such but various organisations, including governments, paramilitary organisations and political parties. These organisations claim to speak in the name of an ethnic group. However, ethnic groups as vast, concrete entitiesdo not exist, they are made through reification. Ethnicity is often seen as a communal bond given by nature and therefore unchangeable. This tendency to see social categories as inevitable and unchangeable is called everyday primordialism.
In India, there was awareness of the ethnic differences between Hindus and Muslims because of the institutionalisation during the British Raj. The All India Muslim League further emphasised these ethnic differences between Muslims and Hindus to enhance their political support. The party was established in 1909, but remained a small and insignificant player in its first decades. During the 1940s, their support grew fast and soon they had more than two million members. The Muslim League claimed that Muslims would only be free if they would get their own independent state. According to their Two Nation Theory, religion was the primary identity of Muslims in British India. Language and other similarities with Hindus were seen as unimportant. Since the Muslims were a minority in India, they considered it impossible to live in a single nation under a Hindu majority. Therefore, the Muslim League was of the opinion that an independent Islamic country was the only realistic option if the former colony would become independent. The emphasis on the differences between Hindus and Muslims in the early 1940s was further enhanced because less and less people saw the Indian National Congress as representing all Indians regardless of their religion. Congress had historically been the Indian party that represented the independence movement on a secular basis. It had won the 1937 provincial elections in most states, being supported by Hindus as well as Muslims. However, once in office, Congress was often involved with Hindu religious life, for example by proposing banning cow slaughter. Muslim members of the Congress could not take the fear away that a country led by the Congress would automatically mean that Muslims would forever be a suppressed minority. In the early 1940s, the Muslim League’s call for Partition became louder and the debate about whether India should be divided intensified when King George in 1945 declared that India would become independent. The British decided to hold provincial elections to make the Indians more familiar with governing, and as a way to figure out which parties were supported most, and should be taken into account for negotiations. With two major parties, the Muslim League supporting Partition and Congress opposing Partition, the vote was soon seen as a vote in favour or against Pakistan. Everyday Primordialism became deeply embedded in Indian society. It became more and more difficult for Indian citizens to self-identify in another way than along religious lines, even for those who were not practising religion. Fatwas circulated stating that Muslims who voted against Pakistan were not real Muslims and would not get an Islamic burial. After Partition, self-identification along religious lines aggravated. Even clothes were now seen as specifically ‘Muslim’ or ‘Hindu’ instead of for example ‘Punjabi’ or ‘middle class’.
1.2.2 Symbolism
On a state level, symbolism was used to further reify ethnicity and provoke violence. Groups do not use violence randomly, but follow cultural models of appropriate action. Violent actions need to be legitimized. The most important legitimisation of violence is its historicity. Prior violence has symbolic value, and is employed to legitimise violence in the present. This is done through violent imaginaries, the emphasising of the historicity of present-day confrontations. Violent imaginaries take the form of narratives, stories that keep the memory of former conflicts and past violence alive by either glorifying the own group’s achievement or by remembering the suffering of one’s own group caused by another group; performances, public rituals; and inscriptions, images subscribed in the cultural landscapes such as flags. On a state level, both Islamic Pakistan and ‘secular’ India included significant religious elements in their official state rituals to celebrate independence, such as rituals performed by Hindu priests in India or reading of the Quran in Pakistan that emphasised the contradictions between perceived ‘Muslim Pakistan’ and ‘Hindu India.’ Flags were powerful images to underline the different ethnicities. The Pakistani flag, a green surface with a moon, a star and a white stripe is a clear example of this, based on the Muslim League flag and including the green surface and the moon and star as commitment to Islam. The thin white stripe represents the minorities that live in Pakistan. Narratives were in a lesser way used by the political elites to legitimise violence. Jinnah, The Muslim League’s leader, for example, expressed his appreciation for all Muslims who died or suffered for the liberty of Pakistan. In this way, he kept the memory of past violence alive.
The reification of ethnicity through institutionalisation and symbolism led to everyday primordialism through reification. This view that the differences between members of groups are unchangeable made violence a much more acceptable solution to cope with the conflicts that arose in the Indian subcontinent in 1946 and 1947.
1.3 Weak states and intra-state security concernsFrom one strong state to two weak states
1.3.1 Fall of the British Empire in India
The Indian Empire had long been a stable part of the British Empire. Some provinces were under direct rule of the British; others were under rule of Indian princes who were loyal to the British. The governmental institutions functioned well and there was a large army to rely on. There had only been one major outbreak of violence against the British Raj, the mutiny of 1857, which was eventually suppressed. This all changed as the date of Partition came closer. India transitioned from one strong state into two weak states. Weak states are states that lack political legitimacy, politically stableborders, and political institutions capable of exercising meaningful control over their territory. It is disputable at which moment the British in India had lost political legitimacy, but they were until 1945 capable of exercising control over India’s territory. Also India’sborders were not disputed in general. However, with Partition, this all changed. How this changed and influenced the Partition’s violence is discussed by taking the reorganisation of the Indian Army and the quick transition into two states into account.
1.3.2 The Indian Army
The Indian Army consisted of more than 2.5 million soldiers at the end of World War II. It had fought for the British cause, both in Europe and in Asia. However, an army of this size was too expensive to maintain after the war. A major reorganisation came into action. With the future independence in mind, the British had two goals: drastically reducing the number of soldiers and replacing British officers with Indian officers. The number of soldiers dropped from 2,5 million to 800,000 in October 1946, which was brought back to 387,000 by April 1947. The societal, political and economic consequences of a major reorganisation were not taken into account. It was acknowledged at the time that a reorganisation on this scale would make the army more prone to ethnic division.
The army had been relatively less susceptible for ethnic division based on religion than the general population. Army-divisions were heterogeneous in terms of Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs.
Historically, most soldiers for the Indian Army were recruited in Punjab. Most of them returned home because of the major reorganisation. Intelligence operations soon received information that more and more volunteer paramilitary movements came into existence. The ‘volunteers’ in these organizations were often very well drilled and trained in military skills. These paramilitary movements were able to get access to weapons partly because of the fact that many U.S.’ arsenals and weapon depots from World War IIwere not destroyed when the U.S. forces left India. Many of these weapons were seized and given or sold to paramilitary organisations.
Communalism, the tendency to feel strongly aligned to the own ethnic group rather than to society as a whole, was further heightened because the army was divided into an Indian army and a Pakistani army. This division was made along religious lines. Muslims would join the Pakistani army and Hindus and Sikhs would join the Indian army.
The British troops of the Indian Army started leaving India two days after the date of Partition. This was not only Britain’s wish. Nehru, for example, stated that day that “foreign armies are the most obvious symbol of foreign rule. They are essentially armies of occupation and, as such, their presence must inevitably be resented” The Punjab Boundary Force (PBF) was created to fill in the vacuum that came into existence when the British left in Punjab, the area that was most affected by the Partition violence. It had the task to prevent outbreaks of violence in Punjab. It consisted of 25.000 soldiers only, too few and too under equipped to be able to prevent all the violence from happening. Moreover, due to the fact that many soldiers were recruited out of the Punjab, soldiers possibly had to defend the people that had killed their relatives. In situations like this, it was difficult for soldiers to neglect the loyalty to their families and stay loyal to the Indian and Pakistani governments. Accidents occurred in which the PBF got involved in the riots, choosing one particular side. Due to its malfunctioning, the PBF was disbanded on September 1, just two weeks after Partition. Without a proper army available, Punjab and other areas where ethnic violence was experienced were lawless. The lack of a strong state gave rebel groups and militias the opportunity to roam around freely.
Reorganisation of the Indian Army had two major complications in the period before Independence Day. First, the Indian Army became muchweaker, both because it was reduced to a significantly smaller army in a very short amount of time and because the transition from a British led army to an Indian led army meant that communalism increased. Soldiers started to feel more loyal to their coreligionists than to the army itself. The other major implication is that a great number of soldiers was sent back home, which was for most of them Punjab. This led to a militarisation of Punjab. Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs all started to organise and arm themselves. The knowledge of the Indian Army veterans contributed to the professionalism of the paramilitary organisations in the province. This combined with the availability of large numbers of (fire) weapons made the Punjab more and more prone to conflict. The Punjab Boundary Force did not have the means to provide security in Punjab. The result was that the government temporarily could not remain order.
1.3.3 A quick transition
The British wanted to speed up the transition as quickly as possible. This was done by bringing forward the date of independence ten months, while government officials had suggested that it would take a lot more time to divide all the administrative facilities into a Pakistani and an Indian part. Especially in Pakistan, new institutions to rule the state had to be created in a very limited time. At the date of Partition, many of these institutions were not even housed yet. Government officials often worked in tents while the offices to house the different governmental institutions were built. This, in combination with inexperienced government officials and politicians, reduced the efficiency of the new governments. The quick transition also influenced the process of border making. As already mentioned in the introduction, the border commissions only had six weeks to decide where the borders would be located. Sir Radcliffe, the judge who was appointed to lead the committees, had little experience in matters of border allocation, and had never been in India. The fact that the locations of the borders were not made public until August 17, 1947 contributed to further increasement of the general unrest.
1.3.4 Final remarks
Both India and Pakistan did not yet have a proper army and political institutions to exercise control over their territories: there were many riots and disputes about the borders, which were often unclear and seen as illegitimate. Of the three structural causes of violence, ethnic geography, weak states and intra-state security concerns
the only component that improved was the political legitimacy. This was not enough to stop the violence of the Partition from happening. Beside this, the political elites sometimes actively contributed to a heightened possibility of the outbreak of violence. The act of violence can serve many goals. One of these goals is the staging of an ideological message before a public audience to transform the social environment. The Muslim League’s call for Direct Action Day can be seen in this light. Though Jinnah did not explicitly mention this, he knew that this call would lead to violence in Calcutta and other cities. The riots that followed were the largest India had ever seen and made the British conclude that, as described in the military report about the killings: ‘The result of this riot has been complete mistrust between the two communities.’ Violence was used to strengthen the view that Muslims and Hindus could not live peacefully in one country together.