Partition
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33. A Pathan is arrested by Indian troops. Many of the lashkar were most interested in loot.
34. Indian troops of 1st Sikhs take up fire positions along the road outside Baramulla. India’s military intervention in Kashmir was as militarily risky as it was politically controversial.
1. ‘Direct Action Day’ in Calcutta, August 1946. Three days of rioting between rival Hindu and Muslim mobs left 5,000 people dead and 10,000 injured in what became known as The Great Calcutta Killing. The savagery appalled even soldiers hardened from fighting the Japanese in Burma.
2. The Bengal famine of 1942–44 caused the deaths of up to 3 million people, approximately six times the total of all other British Empire losses in the Second World War. One, against stiff competition, of the most disgraceful events of Empire, it showed not only that the Raj’s administration had collapsed but that it had lost its remaining moral authority to govern. Here (above) starvation victims lie dying on Calcutta’s streets, while (below) their emaciated bodies are burned.
3. The passing of the Rowlatt Acts of 1919 caused serious unrest to break out in the Punjab, already suffering from heavy recruitment during the 1914–18 war, increased taxation and epidemics. On 13 April, martial law was imposed. The same day Brigadier General Dyer (above), the local British commander, ordered troops to open fire on a protesting crowd in the confined area of the Jallianwala Bagh; 379 were killed and over 1,000 wounded.
4. Indians were made to crawl along a street in which a European woman had allegedly been molested (above) and public flogging was instituted (below). Called ‘a monstrous event’ by Churchill, the Jallianwala Bagh massacre caused a major change in Indian attitudes to the Raj.
5. Mahatma Gandhi (above) as he is usually remembered, wearing homespun, carrying his staff and tramping rural India with his disciples. Although more marginal to the daily working of Congress by 1947, he was still hugely influential. When he visited Mountbatten (below), Edwina Mountbatten had to turn down the air conditioning in the viceroy’s study so that the old man did not get pneumonia.
6. Auchinleck, Jinnah and Fatima Jinnah in 1947. The signs of the disease that would soon kill the Quaid are evident.
7. The popular Hindu view of Jinnah’s ambitions for Pakistan. The cartoonist was more accurate than he realised. Jinnah wanted a federal arrangement, which would have included all India’s Muslims rather than the ‘moth-eaten’ Pakistan he ultimately had to accept.
Dramatis Personae
8. V. P. Menon, who rose from lowly beginnings to become the architect of independence and of much of modern India.
9. Wavell in his study. A sincere and honourable man who had run out of energy and ideas by 1947, he represented an India that had all but disappeared.
10. Hamidullah, Nawab of Bhopal and Chancellor of the Chamber of Princes, who felt the British had betrayed the hereditary rulers.
11. Vallabhbhai Patel, the hard man of Congress, whose attitude to Pakistan was uncompromising.
12. A rose between two thorns, as Jinnah unfortunately remarked to the Mountbattens as this photograph was taken. He had thought that Edwina Mountbatten would be in the centre.
13. Sir Evan Jenkins, Governor of the Punjab, and one of the ablest servants of India. Had his warnings been heeded then much of the slaughter in the Punjab could have been avoided.
14. Jawaharlal Nehru, visiting a refugee camp with Gandhi (above) and with Sir Stafford Cripps (below). Gandhi remained very influential on the Congress leader throughout 1947, while Nehru maintained direct links with Attlee’s government in London via Cripps.
Soldiers
15. Auchinleck was popular and respected throughout the British Indian Army and was at his happiest chatting to its soldiers and their families. His devastation at having to break up the great institution he led would lead to serious strategic misjudgement.
16. State troops. The Maharajah of Rampur’s forces stage a parade for Auchinleck. Armed with old-style muskets in 1947, as the maharajah had preferred to spend his budget on education, they played little part in events. Other state forces became actively partisan.
17. Subhas Chandra Bose struts past a female squad of INA in his jackboots. Early recruits had to swear an oath of loyalty to him based on that of the Waffen SS. Ineffective militarily, the INA were nevertheless a significant political force.
18. The critical meeting in the viceroy’s study on 3 June. Nehru and Jinnah are either side of Mountbatten; Ismay sits behind. They used a small round table to increase the sense of intimacy.
19. Refugees begin to move. Between August and December 1947, approximately 6 million Muslims would leave India for Pakistan and 6 million non-Muslims would move the other way.
20. Contrasting princes. The Maharajah of Junagadh, a Muslim ruler of a predominantly Hindu state, was excessively fond of his dogs and would spend thousands of rupees on their weddings. By August 1947, he had still not decided whether to join India or Pakistan.
21. Hanwant Singh, by contrast, the young Maharajah of Jodhpur, a state with advanced famine-relief measures, decided for India but took far-reaching measures to minimise inter-communal violence.
22. Huseyn Suhrawardy, last premier of British Bengal and later prime minister of Pakistan. He argued strongly for Bengal to become independent in 1947.
23. Sir Olaf Caroe, Governor of the North West Frontier Province. It was Caroe who courageously stood up for a plebiscite on the Frontier, which would see that province choose Pakistan. He was consequently loathed by Congress, who got him sacked. Nehru thought that, without the Frontier Province, Pakistan would not be a viable country.
The Boundary Commission at Simla the week before their decision was announced
24. Radcliffe sits front and centre. On his left is Mehr Chand Mahajan, who would become prime minister of Jammu and Kashmir the next month and be in office during the coming crisis. Christopher Beaumont is second from the right (as you look at the photograph), in the back row. On his left stands V. D. Ayer, whom Beaumont suspected of leaking the Commission’s secret findings to Congress.
25. Muslim Meo children horrifically injured during the violence in Gurgaon, near Delhi, which started in April and May 1947 and which should have served as a warning of what was to come elsewhere in the Punjab.
26. Refugees cram onto a train. Attacks on trains became a favoured tactic of both Muslim and Sikh mobs during August and September. Once a train had been halted, the mobs would systematically butcher everyone on it and loot their possessions. The Punjab Boundary Force did not have enough resources to protect them.
Birth and Freedom
27. Jinnah announces the birth of Pakistan in Karachi on 14 August, while Mountbatten looks distracted. From their very first meeting, the two men did not get on.
28. Next day in Delhi, Mountbatten tries to get through the crowds to raise the new Indian flag while Nehru perches on the cover of the landau. Theirs was a much closer relationship.
Punjab, September 1947
29. September in the Punjab was an even worse month than August. The refugee crisis led to the proliferation of terrible camps (above) where food, water and information were scarcely available, a situation made worse by the torrential rains. But in many ways those who reached them were lucky; approaching 1 million (below) lay butchered across the countryside.
30. A boy contemplates the future from the misery of a camp. Resettling the vast numbers of refugees, sorting out their property and starting to repair their psychological wounds would place enormous demands on both India and Pakistan for decades.
31. A dog chews a corpse in railway tracks. For many, human life seemed to have lost any value.
Kashmir October to November 1947
32. Hari Singh, the ineffectual Maharajah of Jammu and Kashmir, whose indecision would lead to the crisis. He refused to accept that the British were leaving.
33. A Pathan is arrested by Indian troops. Many of the lashkar were most interested in loot.
34. Indian troops of
1st Sikhs take up fire positions along the road outside Baramulla. India’s military intervention in Kashmir was as militarily risky as it was politically controversial.
GLOSSARY
Ahimsa: Non-violence.
Aman: Summer harvest.
Ashram: A spiritual hermitage; Gandhi’s communities were called ashrams.
Aus: Spring harvest.
Baba-i-Qaum: Father of the Nation; term usually applied to Jinnah.
Bapu: Father. Often applied to Gandhi.
Bhagavad Gita: Hindu holy scriptures.
Bania: Moneylenders.
Batta: The extra payments made to soldiers in the Indian Army to compensate them for field conditions.
Boro: Autumn harvest.
Bustee: Slum dwelling.
Dhoti: Loose-fitting Indian male clothing.
Dupatta: Plait.
Durbar: Ceremonial gathering.
Firman: A decree or mandate and also used to describe a pass or permit.
Gurdwara: A Sikh temple.
Goonda: A mob; mostly used to describe the Hindu and Muslim mobs in Calcutta and Western Punjab.
Guru: A holy teacher or leader.
Havildar: Sergeant.
Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen: The Muslim militia in Hyderabad.
Jagirdar: Landlords who charged rent. Similar to a Zamindar.
Jatha: A Sikh war band.
Jathedar: The leader of a Sikh war band.
Jirga: A council or meeting of elders.
Khadi: Homepsun cloth.
Khadi Sherwani: The long, buttoned coats of homespun favoured by Nehru.
Kirpan: A Sikh dagger or sword.
Kuchabandi: A protected place.
Lashkar: A tribal band.
Lathi: A bamboo stave typically carried by rioters and also used by the police.
Mahasabha: The Hindu nationalist movement.
Mahout: The person who guides an elephant.
Maidan: An open space or plain; the large open area in the centre of Calcutta is referred to as the Maidan.
Maulana: An honorific title for a Muslim holy man.
Maund: A measurement of weight equal to 82 pounds or 37 kilograms.
Maharajah: A ruler or prince.
Mahatma: Great Father – usually applied to Gandhi.
Maratha: A Hindu warrior clan from the Western Deccan plain.
Naik: Corporal.
Namaz: Muslim prayers.
Nihang: A warrior caste of Sikhs.
Panchayat: Council of village elders.
Patidar: A caste of small landowners from Gujarat.
Pir: A Muslim preacher.
Pashtun: A tribesman from the North West Frontier.
Pashtunwallah: The honour code by which Pashtuns live.
Quaid-i-Azam: Honorific applied to Jinnah.
Rabi: Autumn harvest; the same as boro.
Satyagraha: Non-violent resistance; used to describe Gandhi’s campaigns of non-cooperation.
Sepoy: Soldier in East India Company’s and later the Raj’s armies.
Shikaris: Hunters.
Swadeshi: Homemade; used to denote Indian-made products which Gandhi exhorted people to buy instead of imported British goods.
Swaraj: Home Rule.
Thanedar: An officer, usually a police officer; often used to describe a Hindu village leader in the Punjab.
Tahsil: A land division and area used for tax assessment.
Tahsildar: An official responsible for a tahsil.
Thana: A sub-division of a tahsil; often the area controlled by a police station and used as the basic unit by Radcliffe for the division of Bengal.
Tikka Para: The Raj’s system of protecting railways by allocating responsibility for the line to the villages near which it passed.
Vaishnava: A tradition of Hinduism that regards Lord Vishnu as the Supreme Being.
VCO: A Viceroy’s Commissioned Officer; a commission given to Indian soldiers prior to 1947.
Zamindar: A landowner, and usually one who lets his land to tenants.
NOTES
ICHR: Indian Council of Historical Research Towards Freedom Series
ToP: Transfer of Power
Chapter 1: January
1 Schofield, Wavell, p.322.
2 Schofield, p.317.
3 Leo Amery, Secretary of State for India, quoting Churchill at a Cabinet Meeting, January 1944, Schofield, p.325.
4 He was commissioned into the Black Watch, the Royal Highland Regiment, a regiment in the British as opposed to the British Indian Army’s Order of Battle. He had, however, served regularly in India since 1907.
5 Shahid Hamid, Disastrous Twilight, p.123.
6 Schofield, p.364.
7 Bombay, Madras, Orissa and the Central Provinces. ToP, vol. ix, No.229, 24 December 1946.
8 ToP, vol. ix, No.236, Bevin to Attlee, 1 January 1947.
9 ToP, vol. ix, No.236, 1 January 1947.
10 Schofield, p.367.
11 Figures taken from Tuker, While Memory Serves, p.164. Tuker, as general officer commanding Eastern Command, was in as good a position to estimate casualty numbers as anyone but even his estimate cannot be taken as accurate.
12 The Sole Spokesman is the title of Ayesha Jalal’s excellent history of Jinnah and the League from the 1930s until 1947. Jinnah claimed repeatedly that it was he and the League who alone spoke for India’s Muslims.
13 Nikhil Chakravarty interviewed, 26 January 1988.
14 Indian Express, 1 July 1997. Gopal Mukherjee interviewed by Andrew Whitehead.
15 Tuker, p.163.
16 Quoted by Sengupta in The Partition of Bengal, p.41.
17 Naffese Chohan interviewed by BBC Radio Cleveland. British Library C900/01580.
18 Indian Express, 20 May 1997. Noakhali Article by Andrew Whitehead.
19 Indian Express, 20 May 1997.
20 Indian Express, 20 May 1997.
21 Indian Express, 20 May 1997.
22 Tuker quoting eyewitnesses, p.198. The Garhmukteswar massacre remains uninvestigated to this day. Pandit Pant, premier of the United Provinces, where the town lies, and one of the people who emerges from the story of 1947 as among the fairest and most even-handed, initiated an enquiry but was unable to see it through.
23 Moon, Divide and Quit, p.30.
24 Khan, The Great Partition, p.82.
25 ToP, vol.ix, No.255, Pethick-Lawrence to Attlee, 6 January 1947.
26 ToP, vol.ix, No.236, Bevin to Attlee, 1 January 1947.
27 A copy of the report on Exercise Embrace is in the British Library: L/MIL/17/5/1816.
28 Mason, The Men Who Ruled India, p.318.
29 Mason, A Matter of Honour, p.387.
30 Spear, A History of India, p.153.
31 Mason, The Men Who Ruled India, p.315.
32 In its 2016 Radio 4 series on the Deobandis, the BBC estimated that more people attended a Deobandi mosque every week in the United Kingdom than attended a Church of England service.
33 Spear, p.166.
34 Moon, Strangers in India, p.35.
35 Moon, Strangers in India, p.52.
36 Moon, Strangers in India, p.52.
37 Inder Malhotra interviewed in Delhi. BL C63/195/11.
38 Moon, Strangers in India, p.36, quoting W. H. Moreland & Atul Chandra Chatterjee’s A Short History of India. See also Raghbendra Jha’s The Indian Economy Sixty Years After Independence, p.18, where the figures are laid out in tables.
39 Moreland & Chatterjee, A Short History of India, p.527.
40 See A. N. Maini, Taxation in India 1934, published in Oxford Gandhi Group’s India Analysed, vol. 2. p.24.
41 The Times Special Report on India, 18 February 1930.
42 Dr P. P. Pillai, India Analysed, p.65. Dr Pillai was director of the International Labour Office in Delhi.
43 S. Moolgaonkar interview, IWM 14660-1-1.
44 Note from Dr Anil Seal to the author, 27 July 2016.
45 Mitchell, The Quiet People of India, Chapter 3.
46 Spear, p.185.
47 Brown, Gandhi, p.123.
48 Churchill, House of Commons, 8 July 1920, Hansard.
49 Quoted in the British Library catalogue Beyond the Frame: India in Britain 1858–1950.
50 The Times Special Report on India, 18 February 1930.
51 Edwardes, Nehru, p.138.
52 See Sen, Poverty and Famines, p.52, and ICHR 1942–42, Part 2, Section viii, 87.
53 Davis, Late Victorian Holocausts, p.172.
54 ICHR 1942–43, Part 2, Section viii, 1912.
55 ICHR 1942–43, Part 2, Section viii, 1916.
56 A maund is 82 lbs.
57 Sen, p.58; see also Famine Enquiry 1943.
58 ICHR 1942–43, Part 2, Section viii, 1956.
59 ICHR 1942–43, Part 2, Section viiii, 1855, quoting an article in Independent India.
60 ICHR 1942–43, Part 2, Section viiii, 1823, quoting the Daily Worker.
61 ICHR 1942–43, Part 2, Section viii, 2059. Letter from Sir N. N. Sircar to Viceroy and ToP, vol. iv, No.180, Amery Statement to House of Commons, 14 October 1943.
62 ICHR 1942–43 Part 2, Section viii, 1892. Bankin Mukherjee speaking in Bihar.
63 ToP, vol. iv, No.199. Wavell’s Visit Report, 27 October 1943.