Partition of India was a "crazy" and "unworkable" idea

Arts & Culture Culture, Arts, Literature & Linguistics
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What do you’ll think, especially after how unstable Pakistan is now?

Lord Mountbatten considered the 1947 partition of India a “crazy” and “unworkable” idea and was disappointed that Pakistan did not make him its governor general after independence, his daughter says.

http://www.newkerala.com/july.php?action=fullnews&id=48039

Lady Pamela Hicks told the “India Tonight” programme on CNBC to be broadcast Monday night that her father was aghast that the sub-continent had to be broken up into India and Pakistan, with the latter in two parts.

"My father thought that the whole thing was a nonsense … that the whole thing was unworkable, shall we say. The partition of India seemed to him crazy. I mean somebody once described it as an elephant with two ears … you’ve got East Pakistan, West Pakistan and the whole mass of India in the middle.

“It’s the most crazy idea … the fact that Jinnah was determined to have his Pakistan was what was going to happen, but it made it all completely unreal, crazy and unworkable,” she said.

Lady Pamela, who was with her parents when India was partitioned, vehemently denied that Lord Mountbatten was eager to give independence to the sub-continent and rush back to Britain to join the navy.

"I take great exception to cut and run. I read somewhere that somebody thought that my father was anxious to get back to the navy. Well, of course, he loved the navy. He hadn’t wanted to take on this position to begin with.

“But once he took on the job there was no question that he was going to cut and run in order to return to his beloved navy. He wanted to work for the best of India and Pakistan.”

Lady Pamela confessed that her father was “bitterly, bitterly” disappointed that Pakistan did not invite him to become the governor general of that country following independence.

She said: "He assumed rather that when he was invited, or going to be invited, to remain on, that he would be the governor general of both (countries) and that (Jawaharlal) Nehru would be prime minister of India and (Mohammed Ali) Jinnah would be prime minister of Pakistan.

"When it became obvious that Jinnah announced that he is going to be governor general himself then, for my father, it was a terrible problem whether to stay on or not.

“My mother actually suggested that he really ought to leave because she anticipated the feeling, that did happen in the end, that he would be accused of favouring India against Pakistan … Jinnah repulsed him and wouldn’t have him otherwise he would very much have liked to have been supervising or as a counsellor to Pakistan as much as to India.”

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/My_father_felt_partition_was_crazy_unworkable/articleshow/2222000.cms

Asked if the Pakistan decision disappointed Lord Mountbatten, she replied: “Bitterly, bitterly.”

Elsewhere in the interview, she said: “He had such an expectation that he would be invited to remain as governor general of Pakistan as well as India that it really floored him when he found that the Qaid-e-Azam was going to take that position himself.”

She added that the independence of India, accompanied by partition of the country, was deliberately brought forward by nine months from June 1948 to August 1947 because Mountbatten “was desperate that they (Indians) should take on government … for them to have to cope with their own problems was really essential”.

She said he felt that “it was essential that this (independence and partition) was brought forward … it was time for India to cope with her own problems. It was going to be their problem. They should cope with it.”

http://www.economist.com/books/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9507188

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Re: Partition of India was a “crazy” and “unworkable” idea

:smack:

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Re: Partition of India was a "crazy" and "unworkable" idea

Very happy that jinnah "disappointed" the faragni mountbatten! :D

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Re: Partition of India was a “crazy” and “unworkable” idea

“There was nothing inherently wrong in Partition”

Hasan Suroor

Yasmin Khan, a British historian of India-Pakistan descent, questions some conventional assumptions about Partition in her bookThe Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan(Yale University Press £19.99) and, controversially, argues that the Muslim demand for Pakistan was “legitimate” given the community’s fears at the time about its political and economic status in a Hindu majority India. Here she explains why, and elaborates some of the other issues raised in the book. Ms. Khan teaches politics and international relations at Royal Holloway, University of London. Excerpts from an interview:

Your book is a grim reminder of the horrors of Partition which you rightly describe as one of the 20th century’s “darkest moments.” Yet one gets the sense that you don’t believe that the Partition itself was a bad idea. Is it right? And isn’t there a contradiction here?

The problem in my view is that imperialism is by its nature bloody, messy, and coercive. It is very difficult, therefore, for a departing imperial power to extricate itself without creating immense difficulties. There could have been civil war or even greater state collapse in 1946-47. So, yes, I guess you could say that there was nothing inherently wrong in Partition as one of many possible solutions to the problems that India faced during those months. There was a strong demand for Pakistan after all. And there had been terrible violence prior to August 1947 which some people believed the Partition would halt. The problem as I see it was in the manner of its implementation, which was absolutely appalling: there was a chronic shortage of information, it was enacted too quickly, there was almost no consideration of the rights of minorities and citizenship questions, and very little consensus about what exactly was being created: was it a permanent settlement? How were the princely states to be incorporated?

You savage the British for the way they handled the so-called “transfer of power” to India arguing that too exhausted after the Second World War to sustain the empire, they were in a hurry to leave and made no attempt to ensure an orderly transition. But you seem to let Indian political leaders off the hook rather lightly. Didn’t they bear any responsibility for losing the plot?

Of course Indian and Pakistani political leaders do bear some of the responsibility. There was ultimately a great stubborness and real failure to compromise between the Congress and the Muslim League and the reasons for this are still argued about to this day. I wanted, in this book, though, to try and move away from this blame-game and to reflect how the Indian and Pakistani politicians themselves were confused and badly informed in the conditions of 1947 and did not necessarily realise what the results of their actions would be. There was so much uncertainty in the rush to hand over power. Few people could guess what ideologies the future states would represent, where each state would be created, what the relations would be with the princely states, how the army would be split and so on. It took a few years for conditions to stabilise. Nowadays we are used to a world of nation-states but this was one of the first acts of decolonisation. Few even considered passports or border guards.

But, surely, Congress and Muslim League leaders could have done more to control the chaos which preceded Partition?

I think there is a distinction to be made. In 1946 and the first half of 1947 there were some very grave events in Bengal, Bihar, U.P., and Punjab in which there was direct complicity between politicians and so-called rioters particularly in the middle and lower tiers. Some of the language being used by politicians was inflammatory and extremely provocative. Police and civil servants were allowed to become partisan. Nationalist and volunteer groups had access to arms. There was a prominent political dimension to the violence and perpetrators may have also acted in the belief that they were doing the bidding of nationalist leaders. By August 1947 I think fear of what had been unleashed had set in among the politicians and they started to try and act in a more conciliatory manner; in August and September 1947 Nehru and Liaquat Ali Khan (who was to become Pakistan’s first Prime Minister) were pulling out all the stops to try and halt the violence. The tragedy was that by this time it was too late.

You end the book saying that Partition “deserves renewed consideration and closer attention” suggesting that not enough work has been done. Why do you think that a political and human tragedy of such proportions — nearly one million people killed and 12 million displaced — has not been examined more extensively either in India or Pakistan?

There has been a brilliant outpouring of work about Partition in the past ten years by historians, anthropologists, and others. The older stories of the high politics of 1947 have been roundly challenged by a more fragmentary picture, which places the experiences of violence, dislocation, and refugee resettlement at the heart of the story where it belongs. I am thinking of the work of Mushirul Hasan, Urvashi Butalia, Ayesha Jalal, Joya Chatterji, and Gyanendra Pandey in particular. So there is certainly more work being done on the subject than ever before. There was a long delay before Partition was tackled as a ‘proper’ historical subject though after Independence: partly this was because of the unspoken traumas and shock of the events themselves and partly because nationalism and the glorification of the moment of Independence took primacy. This has shifted nowadays. It is still surprising that violence of such magnitude is not always fully understood outside South Asia: British narratives still often centre around Gandhi, Jinnah, Mountbatten, and the other key players. There is still plenty more to be said about experiences of Partition beyond Punjab, especially in Bengal which tends to get sidelined in histories of the time.

Although you were born and brought up in Britain, your father was a Pakistani and in that sense you have a Pakistani identity. How much of that has shaped your perceptions of creation of Pakistan and India-Pakistan relations?

http://www.hindu.com/2007/08/06/stories/2007080656071100.htm

I would not choose to describe myself through my nationality; if anything, my identity of choice would be as a Londoner! I have relatives and close friends in both India and Pakistan. My father was born in India and moved to Pakistan as a child. He later took British citizenship. My mother is white British. Having a mixed background has been a practical advantage as a historian.

It has meant that I’ve been able to spend time in both India and Pakistan; the shortage of visas is a real hindrance for historians who wish to do cross-border research. In my view Pakistan is a place of much more cultural and intellectual richness than it is usually credited for.

There is no way that the two countries can come to a solid and lasting peace without more people-to-people contact and real experience of life in the two countries; otherwise stereotypes and simplistic ideas of the ‘other’ get a hold on peoples imaginations

How much time it takes
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Re: Partition of India was a “crazy” and “unworkable” idea

Pakistani streets breathe partition memories for Mohajirs
Posted August 8th, 2007 by TariqueIndian Muslim Muslim World News By Nick Allen and Nadeem Sarwar, DPA

Rawalpindi (Pakistan) : Apart from legendary spectres and ghosts of former occupants who are said to still roam the narrow alleyways, there are no Hindus left in the bustling Bhabra Bazaar district of Rawalpindi.

As Pakistan prepares to mark 60 years of independence on Aug 14, this compact, teeming sub-community of some 100,000 Muslims descended from migrants from India is stirred by memories of the 1947 partition, when they supplanted the Hindu and Sikh families who lived in the central city.

Like many momentous upheavals in history, partition brought out the best and worst in people, says Abdul Razzaq, who came to Rawalpindi with his wife in 1947 from Uttar Pradesh in India.

“Some Muslim gangs used to go round here looking for Sikhs and Hindus and attack them, but many other Muslims helped these families to travel safely to India,” the sprightly 85-year-old recalls as he takes sweet milky tea with visitors at a street stall.

“Some even provided Hindu friends with the clothes and veils of their sisters and mothers so that they could disguise themselves as Muslim women.”

Razzaq and his wife were lucky. British Gurkha troops prevented marauding Sikhs from attacking their train while crossing the new border, sparing them the fate of hundreds of thousands of innocents from both sides who perished in ethnic violence at the time.

Arriving migrants, who like their descendants today became known - often contemptuously - as “mohajirs”, were allocated properties vacated by Hindus on the strength of documented claims of properties they left in India.

Inevitably, some crooks occupied desirable Hindu properties by submitting fake documents, while Muslims who had been rich in India could easily end up struggling for their daily bread after being similarly duped.

“Hindu families who lived here treated us nicely. They offered us their homes and everything in them before they migrated to India,” says Razzaq, who spent the past 60 years in Bhabra Bazaar and saw his family grow to include 20 children and grandchildren.

Behind him traders with handcarts, donkeys, motorcycles and three-wheeled rickshaws stream noisily through a labyrinth of streets that still bears the architectural legacy of past tenants.

The ornate wooden balconies and elegant stone-carved window frames of many houses are distinctively Hindu in origin. Meanwhile, almost all of the “new” occupants of the district share the same migrant roots.

The older generation remembers discrimination it experienced in its new homeland. The feeling of being an outsider has taken years to pass, says Haji Mohammed Yaqub, a 66-year-old resident who also migrated from Uttar Pradesh in 1947.

Only six at the time, his main memories of partition are of watching Hindu families moving out of their houses with all their possessions. He and his family then gradually grafted themselves onto their new surrounds.

“In the beginning there was more discrimination but it diminished over the years to a minimum,” says Yaqub. “At first there were not many marriages between Mohajirs and locals, but nowadays young people don’t mind about family, caste and clan.”

Razzaq’s 45-year-old son Sarwar Butt is not convinced: “My father migrated but I was born here and yet they still call me a Mohajir,” he says with an air of resentment.

Having witnessed his country’s birth throes and transition to a nuclear power, Razzaq does not believe founding father of Pakistan, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, would like what he would find in the country today.

“It was supposed to be a peaceful country where Muslims could live a prosperous life in accordance with their tenets but what we see is violence and intolerance,” Razzaq says, lamenting the growing sectarian divide between Pakistan’s majority Sunni and Shia Muslims.

And 60 years after arriving, he admits that he and many of his contemporaries never really adjusted to their adopted homeland.

“I know many old men who spent every minute of their life in Pakistan with the hope that one day they would go back to their native villages,” he says before disappearing into the crowd.

http://www.indianmuslims.info/news/2007/aug/07/pakistani_streets_breathe_partition_memories_mohajirs.html

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Re: Partition of India was a "crazy" and "unworkable" idea

If there was just one unified India, what makes you think the crackpots that are ruining the country wouldn't exist in this unified India, tearing it apart, just like they're tearing apart Pakistan right now.

The making of Pakistan was probably the best thing that ever happened to India. All the criminal maulvi thugs ran over the border, to spread their sick interpretation of Islam, and voila, you have the messed up Pakistan that exists currently. Meanwhile all the progressives remained in India, and they're making it the country of the millenium.

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Re: Partition of India was a "crazy" and "unworkable" idea

Who cares what the British or Indians think?

Pak might be messed up but at least incidents like Babri-Masjid/Ayodhya, Gujarat-Massacre, Harmandir Sahib (Golden Temple), Kashmiri persecution etc. don't happen in Pak like they does in India with the involvement of the state (as with Harmandir Sahib) or complete apathy (police spectating by as Hindu Fundamentalists slaughtered Muslim in Gujarat) or hidden aid of terrorists (records of Muslim homes and properties provided to the Hindu Fundamentalists so they knew exactly which ones to burn and which Hindu ones to spare)...

Even your movies/media don't tire from projecting Muslims negatively (gangsters, thugs, terrorists, criminals) and insultingly (Muslim girls as 'sluts' who elope with Hindu guys yet never vice versa)..

The only "Muslims" who are somewhat accepted in India are half-Hindu pseudo-"Muslims" like Shahrukh Khan who married a Hindu and teaches his children that the Ganesh/Ganpati idol is Allah or like the Indian president Abdul-Kalaam who I read prays two of the five Islamic contact prayers a day but is also a devotee of a Hindu deity. The types of Muslims that are acceptable in India are not Muslim at all under Islamic Halakha/Shariah. The very basis or core of Islam is the belief in Allaah who is the sole Deity and is Almighty, Transcendent, Omniscient etc. He Himself is the Creator and not like the idols created by the imbeciles that worship them.

Thanks to foreigners hell bent on starting a civil war in Pak our country is going through bad times but we Pakis whether we're Pashtun, Punjabi, Urdu speaking, Sindhi, Balochi etc.... all love our country and Insha Allaah we'll pull through..

congraatz, after completing 25k..(merged)
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Re: Partition of India was a "crazy" and "unworkable" idea

Talking like a typical Indian... You know there are sooo many problems in India? Their Punjab is all messed up- our Punjab is much better. Girls have to dance in beer bar in Mumbai to make money- atleast women are much respected in Pakistan. There are less cases of women abuse and eve-teasing in Pakistan than in India because women dont cover up. Yes, I agree we shouldn't have accepted a lot of ppl and done much background check on non-Punjabis migrating to the west.

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Re: Partition of India was a "crazy" and "unworkable" idea

My God that's disguisting. I think you're the Indian, such racism can't come from a Paki.

Most Urdu speaking people are our brothers, they love Pak and Islam, there's examples of a few Urdu speaking brothers on here who are Masha Allah so conservative, traditional and Islamic and we learn so much from them.

Not all Urdu speaking people are like some of the non-khandani miraasis we get on here, whilst I agree that we get some vile people like that in the Urdu speaking community, there's loads more like that amongst Punjabis and Pashtuns, there's a handful of confused Punjabis and Pashtuns on here and I think a Baloch who are Paki/Muslim in name only and all of them I despise, I'd rather have the decent Urdu speaking brothers as fellow countrymen over those..

Last person to answer this post wins!!!!
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Re: Partition of India was a “crazy” and “unworkable” idea

^Awwwwwww sweet taboo, seems as if racism hasn’t affected you at all!

:rolleyes:

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Re: Partition of India was a "crazy" and "unworkable" idea

So dandia
we have to listen to NEHRO's illegit daughter now???

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Re: Partition of India was a "crazy" and "unworkable" idea

Why are you stuck in the past. Get over it and move on. Partition happened for a good reason.

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Re: Partition of India was a "crazy" and "unworkable" idea

If i was an indian muslim, then i would prefer to live under the white man's British Raj instead of living in a hindu-dominated india

I want to flirt with........
I want to flirt with........
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Re: Partition of India was a "crazy" and "unworkable" idea

^^ gud for u

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Re: Partition of India was a "crazy" and "unworkable" idea

Partition happened for the best... atleast for India.

I do not think the majority of todays generation in India cares at all about the partition. Two different countries are all we have known. Better to have seperate homes than brother riot against brother in the same home (BTW this happens both ways).

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Re: Partition of India was a “crazy” and “unworkable” idea

lets keep reality in the picture, pal - as a pakistani muslim, you have zero say in who rules your own country. forget this fetish of role-playing as indian muslims. =)

hum idhar tum udhar.

happy independence day! :jhanda: