Remembering the Violence of Partition

Source: Associated Press

LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) -- As India and Pakistan prepared for independence, Amtul Rashid Gillani was dodging gunfire, armed only with a stick.

It was 1947 and Gillani was a Muslim medical student in Amritsar, a northern Indian city that exploded in religious and ethnic violence as departing British colonizers carved the Indian subcontinent into two separate nations, Hindu-majority India and Muslim Pakistan.

Gillani and her classmates - a mix of Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims - huddled inside a campus building, clutching sticks and hiding from a rampaging mob.

"All of a sudden we heard gunfire," remembered Gillani, 80, a gynecologist. "The next thing we know it's aimed at us."



Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/S/SOUTH_ASIA_AT_60_MEMORIES?SITE=KTVK&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

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Related:

Milestones in History of India, Pakistan

Some key events on Indian subcontinent:

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1600: East India Company founded in London to exploit Asia's spices and textiles. Gradually gains territory and influence in India.

1858: East India Company abolished; British government assumes administration of India.

1921: Mohandas Gandhi begins peaceful noncooperation movement.

1930: Gandhi calls for peaceful civil disobedience.

1940: Muslim League led by Mohammed Ali Jinnah demands separate homeland for Muslim-majority regions of India.

1947: The two countries become independent at midnight between Aug. 14 and 15. Muslim areas in east and west become Pakistan, with Jinnah as president, and independent India is formed, with Jawaharlal Nehru as prime minister.

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India, Pakistan, Independent 60 Years

GURGAON, India (AP) -- Sixty years ago this week, India and Pakistan won their independence - and saw it quickly overshadowed by one of the most violent upheavals of the 20th century as the departing British split the subcontinent.

Some 10 million people moved across borders in one of history's largest mass migrations as the princely states sewn together in 200 years of British rule were split into Muslim Pakistan and Hindu-majority India. Neighbor attacked neighbor and mobs set upon trains and lines of fleeing marchers in the sectarian riots and fighting surrounding partition.

The fasting and pleas for peace of Mohandas Gandhi, the revered independence leader, were of little avail. Estimates of the dead ranged from 200,000 to over one million, and a year after independence Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu fanatic.

The mass bloodshed was only the beginning of the South Asian neighbors' hostility. They marked 20 years of independence not long after the second of their three wars. The 50th anniversary came a year before tit-for-tat nuclear tests that many feared presaged even worse tragedies.

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is that the Sikhs were promised their own state, Punjab, which would be independent of India and Pakistan (and would have included the Indian state of Punjab plus a similar sized area of Pakistan.

They were lied to and there have been issues between the Sikhs and the Hindus ever since... not to mention that the Sikhs were the "warrior class" of India (historically), ever since they halted the expansion of the Muslims in the 1600s. They feel they are "owed" more say so in the conflict between India and Pakistan, not to mention more power in the Indian government. The current Prime Minister of India is a Sikh from Punjab.

The other big problem is that Punjab is the "breadbasket" of India... and one of the richest states... however it needs water, lots of water, for irrigation... the water table is dropping 10 to 15 feet per YEAR. Every year the farmers have to buy larger and larger pumps to get water onto their fields. This will not continue for much longer, especially as the snow packs in the Himalayas diminish due to global warming.

It was the Pakistani ISI, funded by Ollie North who created that rumor and then funded a terrorist sikh group in India to create turmoil.

India became independent on August 15, 1947. Ollie North was born in 1943.

All of the Sikhs that I know and trust have told me the same story... when British rule was to end they (actually their fathers generation) were promised their own country.

From the Wikipedia entry for Punjab...

The Indian Punjab historically forms a part of the larger Punjab region, which includes the some parts of Afghanistan, Pakistani province of Punjab and the North West Frontier Province, the Indian states of Haryana and Himachal Pradesh, parts of J&K and Delhi and the Union Territory of Chandigarh. Indian Punjab was trifurcated in the year 1966 leading to the formation of Haryana and Himachal Pradesh.

The word "Punjab" is a combination of the Persian words 'panj' (پنج) Five, and 'āb' (آب) Water, giving the literal meaning of the Land of the Five Rivers. The five rivers after which Punjab is named are the Jhelum, the Chenab, the Ravi, the Beas and the Sutlej - all tributaries of the Indus River.

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which is exactly as my friends described the situation. Punjab is a region that is split between India and Pakistan and is (in both countries) a majority Sikh region. Why would be a surprise that they were promised their own independent nation? In any event, this predates anything Ollie North might have done by some 20 to 25 years (and likely longer).

They didn't want Indians to gloat in victory so they had to mar it somehow and create a strife for future arms sales to both sides.

Blame the Brits ... they had no business colonizing India or any part of the world and they didn't have any authority to draw national borders around the world.

That's as British as Sri Lankan tea, and they even called it British.

They stuffed the Kurds, the Shias, and the Sunnis into one nation. Then, to add insult to injury, they cut off the region's historic access to the Persian Gulf by declaring the port the independent state of Kuwait, effectively crippling the nation's prospects for major sea trade. The port of Umm Qasr is puny compared to the port facilities that the Kuwaitis own to the south.

From before the Caesars to after Victoria and Hirohito, the appetite for "god-granted" wealth and power is insatiable. Britain was but one of an uncountable number.

The 'divide and conquer' strategy, both within and without, made it possible for a very narrow minority to exert authority over far greater numbers of people ... people made busy by the infections of bigotry, fear, ignorance, and greed. These strategies persist as tools of those who'd subjugate others.

It was a brilliant film that shows how violent the partition of Indian and Pakistan was.

You also see some of this in Gandhi too.