Re: Hindus who opted to stay back in Pakistan
And this theory that there was a “large exodus of Hindus” from Pakistan is also a myth. The exodus did happen, but it was no different than the exodus of Muslims.
For 1931 and 1941, the figures are for West Pakistan in undivided India. For 1951 and 1961, the figures are for West Pakistan in undivided Pakistan. Data for 1971 could not be accessed. The 1998 Hindu population increases to 1.85% if SC population is added to the Hindu population. From a healthy 14% in 1941 – a figure some analysts say had reached 16% by 1947 – the Hindu population came down to just 1.3% in 1951. The decimation took five years not 50. After 1951, the Hindu population has hovered around the same 1.5-2% mark. It is this tiny population that has been subjected to hardships, conversions, and denial of human rights that Sarkar and others have written about. Most of the 16% Hindus who were present in Pakistan at the time of the partition either escaped to India or, most tragically, succumbed to the genocide that accompanied partition. In 1951, according to the Indian Census data, refugees from Pakistan constituted as much as 20% of the total population of Indian Punjab. To be sure, a significant decrease in the Hindu population had occurred even before the partition. In 1881, there were 9,252,295 Hindus in Punjab, or 43.8% of the population. By 1911, the Hindu population had come down to 8,773,621, or 36.3%. During the same period, the Muslim population had risen from 11,662,434 to 12,275,477 and the Christian population from 33,699 to 199,751. Indeed, this decrease in the Hindu population was what triggered the Shuddhi Movement, or what one calls today as Ghar Wapsi. Between 1909 and 1912, Ghar Wapsi was carried out on lakhs of Muslims and Christians; 100,000 Doms of Gurdaspur, 30,000 Megs of Sialkot, and 1052 Muslim Rajputs were re-converted and brought back to the Hindu fold.
Nothing, however, comes close to the drop in Hindu population in the aftermath of the partition. One may ask, does the vanishing of such a large human population have any parallel in modern history? The answer is yes, it does. On the Indian side.
The partition of Punjab was devastating to the nation’s psyche, and an unprecedented genocidal event. A million died, many millions were displaced. Exactly how Punjab was to be divided was a closely guarded secret. On August 17, 1947, having celebrated the Independence Day parades of the two baby nations, Mountbatten unlocked his safe and removed the boundary maps. He must have sensed a great tragedy was about to unfold. The irascible Churchill had once famously gloated of how, after the Great War, he divided the Middle East with blind swishes of his fountain pen. Now it transpired that Radcliffe had done the same. Of the 29 districts of Punjab, 16 went to Pakistan, 13 to India. Gurdaspur came India’s way and Lahore, the jewel in India’s crown, was now Pakistan’s. Mayhem ensued. Punjab bore the brunt of the mass exodus. By August 14, 1947, an estimated 2 million Hindus and Sikhs had moved already to West Punjab, and an equally large number, 2.1 million Muslims, to East Punjab. Between September 18 and October 29, facing unimaginable hardships, an estimated 8,49,000 Hindus and Sikhs crossed over to India in 24-foot convoys. An equal number of Muslims went the other way – the 1941 Census put the number of Muslims in East Punjab at 5 million. No one, least of all Jinnah and Nehru, expected such mass migration to take place. Indeed, even as late as August 19, Nehru said: “We would not like to encourage mass migration of people across the new borders for this will involve tremendous misery.” The largest migration in human history involved more than misery; it involved a holocaust. Jinnah, once he had got what he wanted, was so shocked to witness first-hand the mayhem that he is supposed to have said, “Oh my God, what have I done?” By 1950, almost 4.7 million Hindus and Sikhs, and 6.5 million Muslims had exchanged places. Table 2 shows the Muslim population of Indian Punjab over a period of 70 years.
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