Consequences of partition

The year 1947 witnessed one of the largest, most abrupt, unplanned, and tragic transfers of population in human history. The human cost of Partition was staggering: an estimated 80 lakh people were forced to migrate across the new border, and between five to ten lakh people lost their lives in Partition-related violence.

The violence was communal and brutal. On both sides of the border, people of one community ruthlessly killed and maimed people of the other community in the name of religion. Cities like Lahore, Amritsar, and Kolkata became divided into 'communal zones' — Muslims would avoid areas where Hindus or Sikhs lived, and vice versa. Minorities on both sides fled their homes, often securing only temporary shelter in refugee camps. The local administration and police in what had until recently been their own country were often unhelpful.

The journey across the border was a nightmare. People travelled by all sorts of means, often on foot. Even during the journey, they were attacked, killed, or raped. Thousands of women were abducted, forced to convert to the religion of the abductor, and forced into marriage. In many cases, women were killed by their own family members to preserve 'family honour'. Many children were separated from their parents. Those who did manage to cross the border found they had no home — for lakhs of refugees, freedom meant life in refugee camps for months and sometimes years.

The division went far beyond territory. It was not merely a division of properties, liabilities, and assets, or a political division of the country and its administrative apparatus. Financial assets were divided, as were things like tables, chairs, typewriters, paper-clips, books, and even the musical instruments of the police band. Government and railway employees were also 'divided'. Above all, it was a violent separation of communities who had hitherto lived together as neighbours. Writers, poets, and film-makers in both India and Pakistan have described Partition as a 'division of hearts'.

The deeper question: What kind of nation would India be? The leaders of the Indian national struggle did not believe in the two-nation theory. Yet Partition on religious grounds had taken place. Did that make India a Hindu nation automatically? Even after large-scale migration of Muslims to Pakistan, the Muslim population in India in 1951 accounted for 10 to 12 per cent of the total population. How would the government treat its Muslim citizens and other religious minorities — Sikhs, Christians, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis, and Jews? …