Rewriting History I-The Two Partitions (1947 & 1971)
Prelude to Partition of the Punjab: Appraisal of the Unfolding Crisis of the United Punjab
Tahir Kamran*
The creation of Pakistan in August 1947 synchronized with the partition of Bengal and the Punjab. The partition of these regions was an episode marked with communal turbulence causing large scale massacre and migration. The Colonial Punjab, given its geo-strategic importance and the status as “the granary of India”, makes it a worthwhile subject to study at the passing of the 61st anniversary of the Indian partition. The partition of Bengal is a tragedy with conflicting interpretations. It persists even six decades after its occurrence.
This paper looks afresh at the crucial period from March to August 1947, utilizing primary material drawn from the Mountbatten archives. It seeks to understand the rising tide of communalism within the province, the responses of the British administration to this and the extent to which actions of local political leaders were compromised because of pressure from Indian leadership.
* Dr. Tahir Kamran is the Chairman, Department of History, Government College University (GCU), Lahore, Pakistan. He is the author of Idea of History through Ages and founder editor of The Historian, a bi-annual history journal of the Department of History at the GCU.
Once Upon A Partition: Fictional Worlds of Qurratulain Hyder and Intizar Husain
Asif Farrukhi*
The Partition of India has been studied and analyzed from several perspectives ranging from the socio-political to the literary. As a subject, it emerges as an important literary theme for the major writers of the period. The paper examines the ways in which this theme has been taken up in Urdu fiction and the various categorizations offered by contemporary Urdu critics in reading this body of work. This paper offers a critique of the most widely held view which categorizes “literature of the riots” (Fasadat Kay Afsaney in Urdu), especially the evaluation of the work of Saadat Hasan Manto, Urdu’s greatest short fiction writer; and, Krishan Chandra by critics of the period including Muhammad Hassan Askari and Mumtaz Shirin.
This paper proposes to break open the so-called category of “riots’ literature” and re-examine the concept of Partition literature by taking it beyond the eternal present to examine and situate its literary significance within a broader historical view, especially in the work of Qurratulain Hyder and Intizar Husain. Unlike the earlier group of writers who focused on the short story, these two major and contemporary figures focused on the novel. This paper offers a comparative analysis of the two major novels, Aag Ka Dariya and Basti by outlining the similarities and contrasts between the two writers in their handling of the Partition as a literary theme.
* Asif Farrukhi is a writer and critic who has published seven collections of short stories and two volumes of critical essays, as well as edited a volume of selected short fiction from Pakistan focusing on socio-political issues from the country's history. He has also edited a selection of post-modernist Urdu poetry and has translated from contemporary Urdu and Sindhi literature into English. He is the founder editor of Duniyazad, a series devoted to contemporary writing.
Partition of 1947: Four Case Studies
Ahmad Salim*
The 1947 partition of India was a unique case in various respects. It was partition of the land, partition of religions and to some extent partition of cultures. The two major provinces of India –Punjab and Bengal – were divided amidst bloodshed and violence. Punjab paid a heavy price in the form human killings, displacement and destruction.
With the long and deep-rooted historical record of communal harmony among followers of different faiths, Sindh remained peaceful, thanks to the centuries old basis of communal harmony.
Due to its specific position, Balochistan declared its independence on August 15 but suffered at the hands of federal forces in Pakistan. As far as Hindu-Muslim tension was concerned, there was just one major communal violence in Quetta. The whole province remained peaceful and Hindu/Sikh communities were not touched, particularly in the Baloch tribal areas. However they suffered in the Pashtun belt of Balochistan.
Communal riots in the NWFP started in late 1946 and early 1947. The Muslim League agitation worsened the situation. The province also suffered at the hands of central government, when the elected provincial government of Congress/Khudai Khidmatgar was dismissed on August 22, 1947. Political manoeuvring of federal government brought Muslim League into power, which allowed the Hindu-Muslim riots in Peshawar, Mardan and other settled districts, while in remote rural and tribal areas (including states), the Hindus and Sikhs continued to live peacefully for decades until the Afghan Jihad displaced them from their ancestral centres.
Objectives:
Our history, including the historiography of partition, suffers from one-sided accounts, state ideologies, biased judgments, untruthfulness and inaccuracies. To counter these ailments, the oral accounts based on people’s perspective were needed to incorporate accounts into re-writing history of partition.
Findings and Source Materials:
The comparative analysis based on oral interviews conducted during SDPI’s Rewriting History Project (July 2006 – December 2008) not only shows the unique position of each province, it also indicates that the communal factor of violence was not the only factor but that economic interests also played a major role in Sindh and even in rural areas of Punjab. These interviews also indicated that many Muslims saved the lives of their Hindu/Sikh neighbors, similarly many Hindu and Sikhs helped their Muslim neighbors.
* Ahmad Salim is a poet, journalist, researcher and keeper of Public records. He works at the Sustainable Development Policy Institute, Islamabad, Pakistan, as Senior Research Associate.
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