|
Association for Communal Harmony in Asia (ACHA)
Partition-Related Books
*Who divided India ? Rediff.com, November 29, 2006 http://specials.rediff.com/news/2006/nov/28sld1.htm Historian Stanley Wolpert's new book -- Shameful Flight -- revisits Partition, and lays the blame for one of the most horrific episodes of the 20th century squarely on the shoulders of a Briton, finds Arthur J Pais.
His admirers in the British government even thought of him as a statesman who could charm discontented nationalist leaders of the British Empire, and tease out of them agreements that seemed impossible for other British diplomats to obtain. So Mountbatten was sent to a deeply restive, increasingly riotous and ceaselessly rebellious India in March 1947 as Britain's viceroy, to hammer agreements that could allow the British to withdraw from the subcontinent with dignity -- leaving the country unified. 'Mountbatten viewed the prospect of ruling India during the Raj's sunset year as challenging as a hard-fought polo game, as he put it the King -- 'The last Chukka in India -- 12 goals down,' writes historian Stanley Wolpert in his riveting, disturbing and provocative book, Shameful Flight: The Last Years of the British Empire in India. “It was a task for only a person of deep insights into India," says Wolpert -- considered by many to be one of the best historians writing on the subcontinent -- in a telephone interview from Los Angeles. "The mission needed a person of great diplomatic skills and [ one] who absolutely lacked arrogance."
The British wanted to leave India by 1948 but Mountbatten cut the time by half
Image: At the conference in New Delhi where Lord Louis Mountbatten disclosed Britain 's Partition plan for India . (Left to right) Jawaharlal Nehru, Mountbatten's adviser Lord Ismay, Mountbatten and Mohammed Ali Jinnah. Photograph: Keystone/Getty Images
What Wolpert would discover some 55 years after the Partition of India -- and the concomitant fleeing of more than 10 million Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs from one side to another -- was so horrifying that the 79-year-old historian might have had a hard time believing it. Mountbatten was not only totally inept at dealing with fractious Indian political parties, Wolpert writes, he hastened the process of Independence. The British government wanted to leave India by 1948 but Mountbatten cut the time by half to mid-August 1947 because he was impatient to get back to England and build his naval career. Much of it had to do with vindicating his father's reputation. First Sea Lord of the Royal Navy Prince Louis of Battenberg was forced to resign from the fleet during World War I because of his German origin. The family changed the last name to Mountbatten to avoid further vilification. His then 14-year-old son resolved to join the navy and remain in it until he became First Sea Lord. "So Mountbatten resolved to make fast work of his India job," Wolpert says. "The British cabinet gave him a longer time, but he never had any intention of using it." Cloak and dagger Worse, Mountbatten kept the Partition maps of Punjab and Bengal -- with the Muslim areas of the two provinces going to the newly created Pakistan -- secret, until it was opportune for him to make the announcement. 'Mountbatten had resolved to wait until India's Independence Day festivities were all over,' Wolpert writes, 'the flashbulb photos all shot and transmitted worldwide, Dickie's medal-strewn white uniform viewed with admiration by millions, from Buckingham and Windsor palaces to the White House. What a glorious charade of British imperial largesse and power 'peacefully' transferred.' In his book published by Oxford University Press -- and which reads in parts like fine detective fiction -- Wolpert has directed quite a bit of blame for Partition at many Indian leaders, including Jawaharlal Nehru, Independent India's first prime minister. One of the reasons for the Labour government in Britain, which had come to power soon after World War II, to grant hasty independence to India was because there was hardly any trust between the Labour and Indian leaders, Wolpert argues. "There were many Left-leaning Labour leaders who thought their proposals for a gradual transfer of full power to India were not appreciated by Indian leaders," Wolpert says. "They felt Indian leaders were not being grateful, not appreciating the efforts Labour was putting in to end the colonial rule, unlike the Tories led by ( Winston) Churchill." Many of Wolpert's finger pointing is bound to cause debate and controversy. Already, Professor Ainslee Embree of Columbia University has called the book 'engrossing, but very controversial.'
'Mountbatten was the worst viceroy of India, he was the centerpiece of this tragedy'
The central villain in the book is undoubtedly the arrogant and unrealistic Mountbatten. "Partition maps revealing the butchered boundary lines drawn by Sir Cyril Radcliffe," Wolpert says, "through the Sikh heartland of Punjab and the east of Calcutta in Bengal , were kept under lock and key on Mountbatten's orders." Radcliffe, a barrister, had never set foot on Indian soil before 1947. "He was to accomplish, in a month, work that should have taken at least a year," Wolpert points out. "He was so afraid of what he had done -- worried that Sikhs, Hindus or Muslims would kill him -- ( that) he left India hastily." Wolpert says had the governors of Punjab and Bengal known about the way the two provinces were being partitioned, "they could have, with their early knowledge, saved countless lives by dispatching troops and trains to what would soon become the lines of fire and blood. "The rapid departure of the British from the region was the catalyst for over half a century of violence, a legacy that lives on today," the historian says, discussing why Partition still holds interest for him. "The Indian leaders as well as their counterparts in England failed to appreciate how bad and how weak a viceroy Mountbatten was," Wolpert continues. "In many ways, he was the worst viceroy of India, he was the centerpiece of this tragedy." Churchill called the time limit a 'guillotine' The failure of the British government to see the larger picture and Mountbatten's preoccupation with his career created explosive conditions made worse by the warring Indian leaders, he says. "I still wonder how it was possible for the leaders of Great Britain , barely two years after defeating, with American support, the armies of Hitler and Mussolini, to withdraw 14,000 British officers in such unseemly haste from India ," he adds. Churchill, who was bitterly opposed to an independent India, cautioned against the sudden departure. He thought the original 14-month schedule was too hasty. His opposition 'could be counted as one of history's supremely ironic moments,' writes Wolpert. 'How can one suppose that the thousand year-gulf that yawns between Muslim and Hindu would be bridged in 14 months?' Churchill asked. He called the time limit a 'guillotine,' adding that the hasty exit could bring a terrible name to Britain. The 'shameful flight' could result in chaos and carnage. 'Would it not be a world crime,' he asked, 'that would stain our good name for ever?' He warned it would be a 'shameful flight, by a premature hurried scuttle.' Image: Washington , DC . October 13, 1949 : Jawaharlal Nehru arrives in the US . Photograph: Staff/AFP/Getty Images Image: Karachi , Pakistan . September 18, 1947: Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan during an interview. Photograph: Bert Brandt/AFP/Getty Images Wolpert sees parallels between the aftermath of 9/11 and what happened in India in 1947
Even the eventual founder of Pakistan Mohammad Ali Jinnah, who would not give up his demand for an independent Muslim State, was worried over the way the Partition was being rushed. Wolpert, professor of history emeritus at the University of California, Los Angeles, dedicates his newest book 'To the memory of the millions of defenseless Hindu, Muslim, and Sikh victims of the British India's Partition.' "For half a decade, I have pondered the question of the tragedy of Partition, and I have dealt with it in some form or the other in many of my books," Wolpert says. "I have also been trying to understand the role of the major people involved in Partition." Wolpert had been thinking of a book exclusively focusing on Partition for many years but, but because of his other assignments, could begin working on it only about six years ago. "I am glad I waited for," he said from his Los Angeles home on a Sunday afternoon. "After half a century of studying and teaching Indian history and writing 20 books on the subcontinent, I finally got an opportunity to reflect on one of the most momentous events in history." He sees parallels between the aftermath of 9/11 and what happened in India in 1947. He sees the "same kind of madness, the same kind of arrogance ( as in Mountbatten's decisions) in going to war against Iraq." Petty politics The infighting between the Indian leaders added to the tension and problems. Some of them changed their minds too quickly. Jinnah, who complained the British were prepared to give him only a moth-eaten Pakistan -- meaning a country with the partitioned states of Punjab and Bengal -- at one point suddenly told the British he was not averse to the idea of an independent Bengal ruled by a fellow Muslim League leader. Gandhi sent word to Jinnah that he would not object to Jinnah being the leader of free India instead of Nehru N ehru gets a lot of blame for going with Mountbatten's desire for not just partitioning the country hastily but also for agreeing to divide Punjab and Bengal . Gandhi had refused for seven years, since Jinnah proposed a separate Muslim nation, to support a 'vivisection of the Mother,' arguing 'Muslims can never cut themselves away from their Hindu or Christian brethren. We are all children of the same Mother.' He was so serious about saving India that he sent word, a few months before Partition, to Jinnah through Mountbatten that he would not object to Jinnah being the leader of free and united India instead of Nehru. But Jinnah -- who always mistrusted the Mahatma, calling him 'wily Gandhi' -- had no use for such overtures. Nehru is also faulted for not listening to Gandhi in getting Jinnah to mediate in the escalating violence in undivided Kashmir . Gandhi even wondered if holding a plebiscite in Kashmir could end the looming violence there. Why did Nehru listen so much to Mountbatten? Those who forget history... N ehru had talked about Mountbatten's fatal charm," Wolpert says. "Of course, he was flattering Mountbatten when he said that. But Nehru unfortunately came too much under the influence of Mountbatten, exacerbated by Nehru's education in England . Nehru was charmed by the English upper world, he thought he could trust and work with Mountbatten. "Mountbatten's royal blood appealed as much to the rulers of princely states in India ," Wolpert continues, "as his radical views and social charms did to Nehru. His charm was so much Nehru was blinded by it." Asked if Nehru's relationship with Mountbatten's wife Edwina played a role, the historian says, "It helped him cloud the danger of what Mountbatten was doing." Wolpert doesn't fight the idea that Partition looked inevitable by 1947, and he understands why Nehru, seeing the way Hindus had been killed in Bengal and Punjab , agreed to the partition of the two provinces. "But the real solution to any massacre is not to make more violence by drawing a line blindly through a province," the historian points out. Years later, Mountbatten would whisper now and then how he had botched up the Independence process Y ears after Partition, Mountbatten would whisper now and then how he had botched up the Independence process. Nehru 'finally awakened,' and admitted in a letter to the Nawab of Bhopal, a friend, 'Partition came and we accepted it because we thought that perhaps that way, however painful it was, we might have some peace. 'And yet, the consequences of that Partition have been so terrible that one is inclined to think that anything else would have been preferable,' Nehru added. At the end of his six-year research and writing, Wolpert was looking for a picture for the book's dust jacket. He had gone through hundreds of pictures of Partition. And he had also seen pictures offering glimpses of thousands of people who perished in the tragedy -- some estimates believe over a million were killed. "Suddenly, I came across an image that encapsulated the tragedy," he says. It is a picture by the well-known photographer Margaret Bourke-White, showing mostly bare-footed refugees going to places they felt would be safe from the communal carnage. The image of a Sikh man in the same photograph carrying a woman on his shoulders also spoke volumes, Wolpert says. "The picture brought to our attention the fact that these poor, barefoot people with no possessions had to make the perilous journey because of the idiocy and arrogance of those who had a duty to protect them." Image: Partition woes: People on their way to India leaving behind their homes and land in Pakistan .
*Retelling History, Charu Gupta , Economic & Political Weekly, April 27, 2002 http://www.epw.org.in/showArticles.php?root=2002&leaf=04&filename=4401&filetype=html Book Review: Pangs of Partition, Volume I: The Parting of Ways, and Volume II: The Human Dimension edited by S Settar and Indira Baptista Gupta; Indian Council of Historical Research, Manohar, New Delhi, 2002; pp 368+358, Rs 700 each. Partition – an event that even after so many years arouses multi-faceted responses, where long silences give way to sudden outbursts, where as much is buried as is revealed. The recent years particularly have seen a rich body of literature on Partition, which is as vast as it is diverse. More intriguing than the fictional recalling of the traumatic times has been the new excitement in portals of academe to combine a study of the whys and hows of Partition with an analysis of pain and the limits of violence epitomised by it. One is often troubled by this new-found interest in Partition. Memory, after all, is not just about remembering, it is also about forgetting. At the same time, to look at Partition through memory has also to do with the general dissatisfaction with the way conventional history about it has been written. And in spite of the vast, extremely rich writings now available on Partition, particularly the works of Urvashi Butalia, Ritu Menon and Gyanendra Pandey, one is still not sure if we have managed to grasp it in its totality, and more important, to come to terms with it. The present book under review, put together in two volumes by the editors of the Indian Council of Historical Research, adds another chapter to the narratives on Partition. What is important here is that it covers a vast arena, in a total of 40 essays. However, I am not quite sure if it anywhere breaks new ground. Many of its writers have written more eloquently and extensively on the subjects covered elsewhere. While many of the essays are immensely readable, I think the main purpose that the volumes serve is to provide a peep into some of the work on the subject at one place. Let me at the outset comment on the weakness of the two volumes. I think what they lack is a comprehensive introduction. It is the same for both the volumes, revealing that not much has gone into its writing. There is no attempt by the editors to weave together a narrative thread and build certain key theoretical arguments, broad themes and insights on the basis of the rich array and variety of essays. They fail to address crucial questions of politics of identity. At one place in the introduction the editors remark, “In any case, the fear of the Muslims has proved unfounded in the end as a substantial section of this community found a secure home in India and are thriving as freely as any other community in independent India” (emphasis mine) (p 8). I think the statement is too sweeping, especially when the memories of recent pogrom in Gujarat are fresh, and fails to even acknowledge the increasing communalisation of politics in recent times, the mounting insecurity, and attacks on Muslims and other minorities, and a greater than ever need to acknowledge and combat communalism. The introduction also resorts to a simplified binary dualism between popular view and scholarly view, between historian’s history and people’s history, while actually the two deeply intersect, with no neat divisions between the two, as the essays themselves prove. In fact, there is a greater need for a space where the two commentaries are intermeshed. Having said this, I must say that some of the essays in the volumes are a pleasure, especially in the second volume. Let me however begin with the first volume, which is more concerned with ‘high’ politics, of Congress and Gandhi, individuals like Mountbatten and the formation of the Constituent Assembly. The first chapter by V N Dutta attempts to figure out the role of Lord Mountbatten in the Radcliffe Award, and if he unduly influenced him to change the boundary award in favour of Indian Pakistan – a question which does not have a definite answer. Gandhi was the saddest and at his heroic best during the days of Partition, a well known fact, different facets of which are covered in two articles by B R Nanda and Chittabrata Palit. The imperialist stand is reviewed and questioned by Bishwa Mohan Pandey. Lal Bahadur Verma writes on a subject, which I think is much more eloquently covered from a different angle by Krishna Kumar in the second volume and more so in his recent book, on the impact of different approaches to Partition in the writing of history books in India and Pakistan . The late Partha Sarathi Gupta highlights the importance of documents as a corrective to stereotyped accounts. Sucheta Mahajan analyses the role of Congress in failing to keep the country united, an issue covered in a much more detailed fashion by her elsewhere. Salil Mishra, in chronicling the coalition politics in UP during 1937, lucidly reveals a turning point in the history of Partition. The papers by Jayanta Sengupta, K S Singh and Bir Good Gill respectively show the happenings in the Oriya princely states, the role of some prominent tribal leaders and tribal politics in central India and the north-east and the role of the Akalis in Punjab . Dwijendra Tripathi and Sri Prakash essentially explore the politics of economics, in relation to the event. While most essays are competent, I found them often dry reading, perhaps because they are often ‘official’, ‘statist’ narratives, dissatisfaction with which has been often expressed by those working on Partition, and avidly by Gyanendra Pandey in his latest book Remembering Partition. Incidentally, I am surprised that there is no essay by him in the volumes, since he has written in depth on the subject. The Human Dimension What has interested me more in the present work under review has been the second volume, which highlights the literary representations of Partition and the human dimension of the event. The essays here roughly cover personal reminiscences, recollections by contemporaries, impressions mirrored in creative literature and events and incidents which inspired the visual media, narratives and popular culture. Krishna Kumar’s essay on the way Partition is written about in school textbooks across the divide provides us with a starting point to examine mentalities and attitudes. However, since his book is recently out, it is much better to read that. The linguistic divide in northern India , particularly from the early twentieth century and the final triumph of sanskritised Khari Boli Hindi over Hindustani and Urdu has been covered widely in the writings of Christopher King, Suniti Chatterjee, and many others in a detailed fashion. R K Agnihotri writes on this well trodden field, but I am surprised that there is no reference to King’s One Language Two Script’s in it. Literature dominates in this volume, and naturally so, since nowhere else has Partition been expressed more poignantly. A number of leading lights of literature have lent their pen to the volume, including Mrinal Pandey, Alok Bhalla and K S Duggal. Mrinal Pandey’s short essay is actually almost a review of Urvashi Butalia’s book The Other Side of Silence. Some essays are very short and almost read like literary notes, for example that of Duggal. Alok Bhalla has two essays and in the one where he undertakes a long and detailed interview with Bhisham Sahni, whose Tamas will rank among some of the best literature on Partition, is of great interest and relevance to us. It is a delight to read Sahni, where there is almost a nostalgia for the syncretic culture of the past. His second essay talks of the problems in Khalid Hasan’s English translation of Manto’s Partition stories, simultaneously raising critical questions on the ethics of a translator. Alok Bhalla features yet again, this time through the essay of M Asaduddin, who finds in the stories on Partition collected by Alok Bhalla in three volumes multiple perspectives and visions of the event. Nandi Bhatia, Anindita Mukhopadhyay, Ameena K Ansari, Jayanti Chattopadhyay, M Asaduddin, Kamlesh Mohan, Shikoh Mohsin Mirza – all cover various literary writers and diverse dimensions of literary representations of the Partition. The paradoxical question of why partition found only fleeting presence in Bengali literature is taken up by Tapati Chakravarty. Perhaps the most readable paper in the two volumes is one by Satish Gujral, where he reveals that he is not only a sensitive painter but can also narrate his reminiscences of Partition in a moving personal manner, revealing fragments and moments of brutality and indignity. Combined with the essay by Kehsav Malik, on the paintings of Satish Gujral on Partition, we get an insight into a sensitive and creative mind and heart. The short but well written essay by Partha Chatterjee reveals how in Ritwik Ghatak’s films, Partition never figures directly; rather it is a riveting memory image of a cataclysmic event. Some essays are very short, like that of Badri Narain Tiwari on the way Partition is perceived in the popular mind in the Bhojpuri region. Urvashi Butalia can be regarded as one of those who has shown deep sensitivity on Partition and particularly what it meant for women. In an essay, interspersed with thought provoking anecdotes, she reveals how silences speak and how oral histories deeply enrich conventional historical sources in understanding Partition. Combined with the essay by Monmayee Basu on the suffering of the Hindu women in Bengal directly affected by Partition, they make an effective case for oral evidence, especially to get women’s side of the story. Minus footnotes, many of the essays in this volume make for easy and touching reading. This volume is much more involving, since it touches a core, and brings forward the pain and tragedy in a sensitive manner. The two volumes together have so many essays that it is impossible for a reviewer to cover all of them, and thus I have just been able to provide a bird’s-eye view on them. Finally, I think that any work on Partition is incomplete if it is not plural. Suvir Kaul, in his recent edited book on the subject, Partition of Memories, has lucidly remarked that each time we teach the story of Partition in order to demonstrate Jinnah’s guilt or the culpability of the Muslim League, and ignore the role played by religious chauvinists within the Congress or other political and social organisations, we tell a tale that deepens the divides signified by Partition. Only a history which makes an attempt to underline the different and plural truths of what happened at the time, can help us to be more tolerant and better human beings. Literary narratives, oral accounts, constructs and interpretations as much as actual events, local happenings – all these acquire a critical importance for this very reason. The two volumes, in spite of their limitations and the fact that they break no new ground, are partially successful in bringing together these plural and multifaceted dimensions of Partition. *Hidden facts behind British India’s freedom: A scholarly look into Allama Mashraqi and Quaid-e-Azam’s political conflict, Nasim Yousaf From “Mashraqi’s Grandson Authors Book on India’s Partition,” in India West, August 31, 2007 The grandson of Allama Mashraqi, founder of the Khaksar movement, Nasim Yousaf, details Mashraq’s point of view on the division of British India and the creation of Pakistan. Yousaf challenges the “gilded gentry” of the All-India Muslim League, critiquing its role in ending British rule and argues against the necessity of the creation of Pakistan.
|
Image - Stanley Wolpert 
Image -Staney Wolpert’s Shameful Flight book cover 