Partition of India: facts, hearsay, literature and films

“Every time the train stopped at a station, we would all hold our breath, making sure not a single sound drifted out of the closed windows. We were hungry and our throats parched.

From inside the train we heard voices travelling up and down the platform, saying, “Hindu paani,” and, from the other side, “Muslim paani.” Apart from land and population, even the water had now been divided” Aanchal Malhotra, , Remnants of a Separation: A History of the Partition through Material Memory

The 1947 partition of India into independent dominions of India and Pakistan, later named the Republic of India and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, saw India breaking away from the shackles of being ruled and exploited by the British. Mohamed Ali Jinnah insisted on an independent country for Muslims, and though Mahatma Gandhi was totally opposed to it, the last Viceroy of India, Lord Louis Mountbatten, concluded it was the only way to see to India gaining independence.

He persuaded Jawaharlal Nehru and others at the negotiating table to agree to a division of the subcontinent to two. Cyril Radcliffe, later First Viscount Radcliffe, was allocated the task of drawing the line of partition. Thus 175,000 sq miles was divided by a line separating 88 million people into two countries: to remain in India or move to the to-be created nation for Indian Muslims. The partition involved most significantly the provinces of Punjab and Bengal, based on district-wide Hindu or Muslim majorities.

“The partition displaced between 10 and 20 million people along religious lines, creating overwhelming calamity in the newly constituted dominions. It is often described as one of the largest refugee crises in history.” Mention need not be made of the disastrous murders, mutilation; suffering of uprooted people travelling to new homes, or death en route; and families divided. The hostility then created still exists between the two nations and among their people.

The most touching and heart searing speech to me is Jawaharlal Nehru’s “Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom.,..”

Remembered truths, gathered opinions

Remarked it was that Mountbatten just took a date for Indian independence off his head, pronounced it – August 15, 1947, which was far too rapid. Cyril Radcliffe and his team of demographer/ map makers were not given time to actually work out carefully which areas had majority Muslims or Hindus and thus the line hurriedly drawn caused disaster.

Ali Jinnah was suffering from terminal tuberculosis and only he and his sister and of course his physician were privy to the fact his death was sure and near. Read somewhere was that if Mountbatten and Nehru knew this, they would have delayed a decision on independence and the date of its implementation so that, with the other Muslim leaders not being as insistent as Jinnah was on a separate state, India need not have been divided.

I entertain this theory, maybe totally imagined, that Nehru trusted Mountbatten whole heartedly. Mountbatten was charming and domineering too. Additionally, Nehru had a very special friendship with Lady Mountbatten – whether only mind to mind mutual compatibility or sexually is still not known definitely though their relationship was referred to by even Pamela Mountbatten. Thus Nehru could have been less judgmental on Mountbatten. Gandhi protested partition vehemently, but now that independence from British rule that he strategized and fought so hard for was won, he may have been relegated to creating amity between the warring religious fanatics. His objections were either disregarded or not stated strongly enough.

Written facts, memories, woven fiction and films around partition

Supposedly, an entire large library could be built to contain writings on Partition. I mention here only the two books I have read and three others.To me the most searing was Nisid Hajari’s Midnight’s Furies: the deadly legacy of India’s partition. (2015). The front cover caries these two blurbs. “Powerful, intelligent and beautifully written… Hajari presents the history like a detective story and you will be swept along.” Fareed Zakaari; and “A superb and highly readable account” – New York Review of Books. The back cover carries this note: “From nuclear proliferation to jihadi terrorism, the Partition of India continues to cast a long shadow even today.” The author spoke at a Galle Literary Festival.

Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children (1981) is fiction where two children born in a hospital are interchanged by a nurse whose man friend, a rabid Muslim radical, gets her to act upon his instructions. Thus a rich Hindu family loses their son and is given instead the son born to an itinerant singer’s wife. Salem Sinai, one of the children, is the narrator and dies in an accident later. Deepa Mehta directed in 2012 the very successful box office film adapted from the book.

Three other books mentioned are Yasmin Khan’s The Great Partition; Urvasi Butalia’s The Other Side of Silence and Anjali Enjenti’s The Parched Earth in which the story of a woman and others runs through from 1947 to 2017.

Deepa Mehta in her trilogy of films: Earth, Fire, and Water; all absolutely marvelous with Water filmed in Sri Lanka due to protests against it in India, and Fire dealing with extreme sensitivity the sexual relationship of two neglected Indian Hindu wives. Earth dealt with the consequences of partition. It was adapted from the book Cracking India by semi-handicapped by polio Babsi Sidhwa whose novel was partly autobiographical. The film is set in 1947 and the story narrated by Lenny, a polio affected little girl in a Parisian family living in Lahore. Lenny watches her housemaid Shanta and her admirers: a Hindu, Muslim and Sikh. Shanta is played by Nandita Das while Aamir Khan and Rahul Khanna are the two admirers. Lenny inadvertently reveals the presence of the Hindu maid in their home. Shanta is dragged out and taken away, her Muslim admirer being one of her torturers.

I conclude with one of Mahatma Gandhi’s comments on Partition: “Partition is bad. But whatever is past is past. We have to look to the future.” He misjudged human beings. He said what he said in his profound wisdom, practicality and strict adherence to ahimsa. The effects of Partition though 75 years on, have not waned completely, though reconciliation is present.

I invariably watch out on August 15 news to see what headgear Prime Minister Mody wears when he makes his speech from the Red Fort in Delhi. This time he wore a white turban patterned in red and green streaks with a long scarf hanging behind, giving him a regal look. His choices reflect masculine headwear from different States of India.