by Yasmin Khan
But just as land was being divided, so were soldiers. Nearly half a million Indian soldiers commanded by a predominantly white British officer corps had to be cut and pasted into the new national formations. The division of the army along religious lines, which Auchinleck had reckoned would take ‘between five and ten years’, in March 1947, was hurried through in months, although it was only completed in full in March 1948.28 In the midst of the most appalling killings which were ripping through North India and just at a time when a united, neutral army was needed to suppress militias – which were often composed of ex-soldiers themselves and hence not averse to engaging the authentic army in battle – the regiments of the Indian army were dismembered. Soldiers were combed out and mechanically divided according to their religious hue; blocs of Muslim soldiers were hastily packed off to Pakistan while non-Muslim soldiers were dispatched in the opposite direction.
Of the twenty-three infantry regiments in pre-Partition India, only seven consisted exclusively of Hindus, Muslims or Sikhs. Now, no Muslim who was resident in the Pakistan areas could choose to serve in India, and vice versa for non-Muslims living in India. Much effort had been expended by the British during the Second World War trying to keep the military immunised from the cross-currents of Indian nationalism. Before Independence, fervent nationalists were unlikely to sign up for careers in the imperial army. Now, though, more narrowly defined allegiances to the League and the Congress became irrelevant. The religion into which a soldier was born became the sine qua non of his new national identity. Now all Muslims were fundamentally equated by the state apparatus with Pakistan and all non-Muslims were assumed to have a natural allegiance to India, whether they had expressed support for the creation of the new states or not. Given this stark choice it was unusual for soldiers deliberately to choose to serve in a country where they would be part of a ‘minority’. The chances of a quick promotion, family persuasion, marital prospects or judgements about personal safety rapidly took precedence.
Men of various castes and communities lived intimately alongside each other in the Indian army. Some companies remained immune from jingoistic outbursts, whereas others became more highly politicised. News of army indiscipline was suppressed and the army appeared to remain more ‘reliable’ and less polarised along ethnic lines than the severed and pugilistic local police forces. Nevertheless, the cart followed the horse as soldiers were encouraged to display patriotic feeling. Now, labelled Indian or Pakistani, many soldiers started to identify openly with one side or the other. ‘Mussalman officers are Jubilant and talking openly of being generals in the Pakistan army, and that Pakistan will eventually be greater than the previous Moghul Empire,’ wrote one British colonel.29 Many sepoys came from the Punjabi and North Indian heartlands where violence was raging and felt extremely anxious about the fate of their families. Nervous and irritable soldiers waited for information of their new postings in the maelstrom of misinformation and rumour.
As rail and road networks remained vulnerable to attack, the precise moment at which units of Muslim soldiers would be evacuated to Pakistan from India – and vice versa on the Pakistani side – was kept a closely guarded secret and usually announced at very short notice. A group of Pakistani cadets stationed in the northern hill station of Dehra Dun had just four hours’ notice to pack for their new homeland, and their superiors bundled them out of their base in a heavily guarded convoy at 5.30 in the morning. The British medical officer Anthony Epstein, who was looking on, wrote home to his family about the sudden departure of the Muslim cadets. ‘It was all very dramatic and tense, with a farewell parade in the dim lights of lorries and everyone cheering and very excited. This incident only heightens the sense of foreboding there is here as everywhere.’30 Soldiers who had forged friendships over many years of shared daily routine were suddenly separated and there was genuine sadness about the division; glasses were raised in heartfelt toasts, addresses were exchanged and pledges made. Every company of the 3rd Rajputana Rifles hosted a leaving party for their Muslim co-soldiers before they took their leave for Pakistan. As a senior officer in 1947, Sahabzada Yaqub Khan, later a Pakistani Foreign Minister, remembered in discussion with the journalist Andrew Whitehead,
Many of the men I commanded, Punjabi Muslims, they had homes in what would become Pakistan, but in the villages there had been many cases of abduction of women, and some of the men were affected, their families and so on had been abducted … but I must say this also, their Sikh comrades made many efforts to go down to those villages and to try and secure release of abducted women, not always successfully; but you can imagine that events of that kind, which touched so deeply … were bound to prey on the minds of the people concerned; these events were a strong indication that the fabric would not be able to hold together.31
In the shadow of the continuing Punjabi violence, the fragmentation of mixed regiments was a constant concern despite the strong thread of comradeship running through the armed forces. Whole squadrons of Sikhs and Muslims waited cheek by jowl for movement to their permanent units in Jhansi and as rumours of their impending transportation came and went, alongside new stories of calamities in Punjab, there was a risk of the soldiers turning on each other. As they nervously waited for news of loved ones the strain could become too much. In Gujranwala there was a mutiny in one Pakistan battalion and the non-Muslim soldiers had to be urgently removed to safety, while in Ambala an inquiry found Pakistani troops guilty of firing at civilians from the carriage windows of their passing train, killing or wounding sixty people. A Sikh captain was charged after a shooting incident in an unspecified Punjabi suburb in which eighteen people died.32 On board a ship sailing from Bombay to Karachi after Independence, General Tuker, who was no stranger to the extent of Partition's damage, was astonished to find just how many soldiers on board had had relatives killed in the violence or had not heard from their families for months.
Some soldiers, once they had been segregated for dispatch to their new homeland, passionately adopted the slogans of their new state and fired their rifles into the night sky as they passed through train stations en route, yelling ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ or ‘Jai Hind’.33 Food and water were handed through carriage windows to troops as they crossed into either India or Pakistan at the Wagah border crossing, and the air was filled with morale-boosting cheers and flags. In the later weeks of 1947, with increasing regularity, soldiers – on hearing of villages wiped out or sisters abducted – deserted to join militias to assist in the ethnic cleansing of Punjab.
As a result, the reliable manpower available to cover the vast tracts of land that were already up in flames, or likely to descend into the clutches of violence, was shockingly thin. At the same time, preparation for the departure of the British army was in full swing. Only a few hours’ travel from the Indian capital itself, in the flat expanses of Gurgaon, guerrilla warfare against a rural population known as the Meos was decimating whole villages. The state was unprepared and there was a botched attempt to send troops. A ‘British’ policeman, William Chaning Pearce, who was actually Canadian-born and educated in Switzerland, was in his late thirties at the time and responsible for policing the neighbouring district of Mathura. ‘Our resources for this task were pitifully meagre,’ he recalled. Ingenious arming was taking place in the countryside. ‘Although open violence ceased for the time being the extreme tension remained and both sides realised that the major storm was yet to come.’ There was a lull in the Gurgaon massacres, during which time Chaning Pearce remembered the bustling activity that took place:
The whole countryside therefore started at top speed to arm themselves for the supreme test. Practically every village started a gunpowder factory and village blacksmiths did a roaring trade converting any old piece of gas pipe into a so-called gun. Some surprisingly effective weapons started to appear. There were swords and spears by the thousand and even some home made sten guns and mortars. The latter, often made from the back-axle casing of a car, were usually mounted on strategi
c rooftops in villages to repel invaders.
There was only one jeep available in Chaning Pearce's district. For a while he and his men had the assistance of the Poona Horse, the Indian cavalry regiment, but soon, to their frustration, this was posted elsewhere. ‘We could not spare more than twenty or so armed men in static pickets.’34 In many places, policemen and soldiers were no match for the creative enterprise of amateur forces. Parties of volunteers could be seen marching along the major roads from the frontier and gathering along the Grand Trunk Road, reaching into Punjab, on their way to join the battle armed with swords, spears, lathis and muzzle-loading guns. One gang intercepted on their return from fighting in Gurgaon even had an elephant with an armoured howdah. The militias were also working hand in glove with the local leaders of princely states who acted as conduits for arms and transport.
During these fraught days, the state was trying to do two contradictory things at once: split the army in half, and prevent civil war. The chances of maintaining the peace looked increasingly slender.
Crisis in the capitals
‘In Delhi I found everyone extremely tired.’ Less than 50 miles away, a young American journalist Phillips Talbot recorded the frenetic activity in the capital in July 1947. ‘A viceregal adviser who is the essence of politeness yawned in my face. Jinnah looked haggard and drawn. Nehru's always explosive temperament had according to people working with him got the best of him more frequently than usual. Some feared he was nearing a nervous breakdown. Everywhere weary worn men were struggling with problems that were too vast and too complex for them to comprehend fully in the available time.’35 Partitioning the states in such a short time required immense physical and mental stamina. A photograph published in Life magazine in 1947 shows a frowning young official with his head in one hand, a pen in the other and a balance sheet spread open on the desk before him. All around him, piles of leather-bound books tower in great heaps. One pile of the books is labelled with a large white sign that says INDIA, while the tottering stack on the other side of the table is marked PAKISTAN. The official is dividing up a library between the two new nations. The division of library books was an especially contentious matter. Alternate volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica were meticulously allocated to each country.
New Delhi's offices had spun into overdrive. Partition had become a policy decision to be implemented and the loosely defined nationalistic aspirations of Indian and Pakistani people were now moulded into modern countries. Nationalist ambitions had to be squeezed into the prosaic boundaries of sovereign states. A literal interpretation of the words ‘Partition’ and ‘Pakistan’ now came to the fore, as the future shape of the subcontinent pivoted on delicate extrication of the resources needed to form a new Pakistani state from the old administrative husk of the Raj. Government staff separated all the physical and paper belongings of the former British Indian government. The task was left in the hands of civil servants and a Partition Council was established on 1 July, steered by two civil service officers, a Hindu, H.M. Patel and a Muslim (later a Prime Minister of Pakistan), Chaudhuri Mohammad Ali. This had the power to decide on the division of the spoils between India and Pakistan, and ten sub-committees dealt with splitting every arm of the government, from the most trivial to the most essential. Decisions that could not be made by the Partition Council were referred on to an arbitral tribunal. A general rule of thumb was agreed by which the division of physical, or movable, goods would be made along statistical lines, with 80 per cent of all goods going to India and 20 per cent to Pakistan. Every item of government property was counted and clerks drew up itemised lists. The goods to be counted and divided in the Indian Health Department included the following:
1. Durries 2. Table Lamps 3. Iron Safes 4. Cash Boxes 5. Cycles 6. Typewriters 7. Electric Heaters 8. Steel Trays 9. Stirrup Pumps 10. Time pieces 11. Clocks 12. Calculating machines 13. Locks 14. Magnifying glasses 15. Steel Racks 16. Steel Cupboard 17. Inkpots with stands 18. Curtains 19. Waste Paper Baskets 20. Paper Weights 21. Stationery 22. Officers’ Tables 23. Other Tables 24. Chairs 25. Almirahs 26. Screens 27. Arm Chairs 28. Wooden Racks 29. Wooden Trays36
The pathos of such a doctrinaire division carried out against the backdrop of the carnage unfolding nearby is not difficult to imagine.
Political tension, despite the optimistic and self-congratulatory assessments in the Viceroy's camp, did not abate. ‘There is no let-up in the negotiations with the parties,’ Mountbatten wrote to the Governor of Bombay, ‘and every day something fresh occurs which threatens to break down our slender basis of agreement.’ The speed with which so many small but cumulatively important decisions had to be made placed a nervous strain on the administrative elite. ‘An air of breathless haste seems to hang over the city,’ observed an American diplomat on the other side of the country. ‘Harassed government officials and politicians scamper around Calcutta as if pursued by the avenging angel.’37
In June 1947, every Muslim who worked for the government and resided in an Indian, rather than a Pakistani, area received a letter or was asked to make the choice of serving India or Pakistan. A propaganda war between the Indian and Pakistani governments started over the potential opportunities that would be on offer to young officers in the new states. Some hoped to gain promotion by plugging the gaps left by the departure of British officers. Frantic calculations about salaries, pensions, pay scales and promotions ensued. One cynic commented that ‘All senior Muslim officers, with or without substance, are busy planning and manoeuvring for their own uplift in Government employment.’38 Officers made tortuous decisions, based on a combination of political and personal reasons.
For Muslims in the more junior services, though, there was concern that promotion would become difficult because of suspicions about political loyalty if they stayed in India. It is an exaggeration to imagine that the members of the services who departed for Pakistan, as is sometimes suggested, were purely the elite. The majority of government employees who were given the chance of opting for Pakistan came from more humble jobs, on the railways or in the postal service. The decision whether or not to leave for Pakistan was most difficult for these low-ranking, low-earning workers: ‘An average man is in a great fix,’ confided a Muslim lawyer from the Central Provinces to Jinnah, ‘and every day railway and postal men are coming to me to consult.’ Visitors came to the lawyer's door asking for advice on the question of migration. ‘I feel I am unable to give them proper directions without first consulting you.’39 The decision was momentous – more momentous than many of them realised. When some of them wavered, changed their minds or tried to return to their old jobs they would find it difficult or impossible to resume their old lives.
Manzoor Alam Quraishi, a Muslim staunchly in favour of a united India, had just celebrated his thirtieth birthday and had taken up the position of District Magistrate in Pauri in the idyllic foothills of the Himalayas. He had no intention of opting for Pakistan, although his brother, Badre Alam, was a keen League supporter, and was making his way to the new state. ‘Even I got some threatening letters that I should migrate to Pakistan, otherwise I and my family would be wiped out by my own Hindu police guard,’ he later wrote. Quraishi stood his ground, although he took the precaution of carrying a loaded pistol while touring the district, and he had a long and distinguished career in India.40 For many others, though, even if they had never been keen on the League, Pakistan could seem like a safe haven.
As thousands of officials, railwaymen and clerks did make the choice to leave for Pakistan the logistics of the division became preposterous: 25,000 government employees relocated from one side to the other with 60,000 tonnes of baggage. From late July special trains set off across Punjab and Bengal carrying government workers to their new locations. Crates of belongings trailed behind civil servants who did not have clean clothes to wear to work when they finally arrived. Entire government departments operated from tents and barracks in the new Pakistani capital and those officials who had come from Indi
a remained intensely worried about the families they had left behind, many of whom could not accompany them immediately. ‘We were not allowed to take files, typewriters, or anything,’ recalled one administrative official, ‘we used to work in tents, and I remember using thorns instead of paper clips. Only one goods train of our office equipment ever reached Pakistan.’41 A national myth was being forged and the solidarity and camaraderie of the situation dissolved class differences and pulled new compatriots together, if only momentarily. As the nationalist newspaper Dawn patriotically reported, ‘Cabinet ministers of Pakistan use packing cases as desks and crack jokes with painters who drip whitewash on them.’42
The reality was more gritty. The problems facing the Pakistani machinery and the confusions of the time were such that the new ‘Pakistanis’ – the word itself was still strange – requested that the first sittings of the Pakistani Constituent Assembly be held in Delhi. This request, which would have meant the two new constituent assemblies working in the same city at exactly the same time, was, not surprisingly, met with rapid refusal by the Indian ministers. So a new capital had to be built almost from scratch and quickly made ready for the tide of people coming from India.