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Lecture 4 - Partition

The document summarizes the states reorganization in India after partition in 1956. It discusses how the region of Punjab, Haryana, and Himachal Pradesh was previously called PEPSU until the states were reorganized. The document also describes the mass migration between India and Pakistan during partition, noting that millions of people traveled by train and on foot between the two countries. It discusses the horrors of the journey, including overcrowded trains where people died and were thrown from the trains. The document also provides an example story of a mother with babies during the migration.

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Ashwin Hemant Lawanghare
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42 views4 pages

Lecture 4 - Partition

The document summarizes the states reorganization in India after partition in 1956. It discusses how the region of Punjab, Haryana, and Himachal Pradesh was previously called PEPSU until the states were reorganized. The document also describes the mass migration between India and Pakistan during partition, noting that millions of people traveled by train and on foot between the two countries. It discusses the horrors of the journey, including overcrowded trains where people died and were thrown from the trains. The document also provides an example story of a mother with babies during the migration.

Uploaded by

Ashwin Hemant Lawanghare
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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30/12/2016 – LECTURE 4: PARTITION (3)

States Reorganisation
The entire region of Punjab, Haryana and Himachal till 1954 i.e. 7 years post partition was
called PEPSU. Till now, there were mainly princely states because there was no other
concrete division of states. Whatever had not been part of the Rajput Empire and Princely
states fell directly under the British empire. It was in the year 1954 i.e. the States
Reorganisation commission. It was only in 1956 that the first states emerged in India.

Punjab Division
These states are only as old as that. The commission solved the problem of Punjab in a
rather peculiar manner. Till now, Punjab was known as PEPSU i.e. Patiala and East Punjab
States Union because (west Punjab had gone to Pakistan). PEPSU included today’s Punjab,
Haryana and Himachal Pradesh. This entity was further trifurcated into these three states
we know of as today. The same was done because Haryana and Himachal speak different
languages, these states needed to be carved out of Punjab. Obviously, the Sikhs were
disgruntled because of this treatment.

Mass Migration (Trains)


Even after the Radcliffe line it was clear hence, that not everybody would be on the right
side of the border. With the coming of the partition, there also came a mass migration.
Millions of people were going back and forth between India and Pakistan. [Reference: The
train to Pakistan by Khushwant Singh – extremely graphic and well written]. The British had
organized trains for this movement. Any place you could hold on to on the train meant you
were on the train. People were also stuffed into wagons to be put across the border.
Because the trains were so overcrowded, they would travel at a snail’s pace and what would
usually take 4-5 hours, the same journey began taking 4-5 days.

There was no provision of food and people began dying inside these trains. Whoever died
would be thrown out. This was very similar to 1940 Germany, just apart from the fact that
they were not holocaust victims. That is what life had come down to. On railway stations
there used to be Hindu, Muslim and Sikh revenge mobs who wanted to kill people even
while they were leaving. The trains would be very slow, and these revenge mobs would hack
off body parts and whoever fell was cut into pieces. Some of these people even had guns.
They used the same for their revenge.

The Story of the 2 babies


One such incidence which caught public imagination was that of a mother travelling across
the border with two babies. Their father had been killed. As she runs towards the train, a
gunshot comes and a bullet goes through one babies head. She keeps running and realises
that there is not place on the train. In order to get on she has to hold on to a hand of a man
who is offering to pull her in. To do the same she has to throw the dead baby away. She
tosses the dead kid, gets in and realizes that she had thrown the live one. This story has
been documented and the horrors of partition were such that these two countries were
born in blood.

Mass Migration (On Foot)


People who were on the trains were in fact the lucky ones because those who were not
aboard had to walk across. For the same – it would take anywhere between 15-20 days.
Even though Lahore and Amritsar are not very far (Just 30 KM) but people were carrying
literally their entire lives on their carts. Food was scarce, but water was essential and could
not be done without. People who were crossing pathways had venom in their hearts and
their mind was full of revenge. Hence both sides poisoned the wells on their side so that the
people from the other side could not use them. When both sides were doing this, obviously
people from both sides were also dying.

The Boundary Confusion


Even when you did reach the other side, you did not know whether you were safe. Here
comes the catch. Nobody knew where the border was. Nobody knew how far you had to go
to reach Pakistan or India. There was no clue of any exact boundary line.

Class Question/Doubt: Can the atrocities of partition be attributed equally to the Hindus,
Muslims and Sikhs? Considering that India has a larger surface area and that Hindu’s and
Sikhs were collaborators how did the dynamic work?

Answer: This also partially depended on where you are. In India, there were assaults
against Muslims even in Delhi. They were told that they are traitors. Such instances did not
take place in Pakistan till partition. However after partition – the attacks in Pakistan against
Sikhs, Hindus and Christians grew exponentially. However – apart from semantics, you could
more or less share the blame equally. However, Sikhs and Hindus were largely collaborators.

Post partition off course things have turned out worse in Pakistan. There – if there is a Hindu
or a Sikh person who dies fighting in their forces, a special ceremony is conducted to ensure
that they do not get to paradise and they are not declared Shaheed. This is an extremely sad
state of affairs. In this case, yes India has turned out better.

Class Question/Doubt: What was the situation is the rest of India, apart from the north?

Answer: The rest of India was largely static, even the Muslims. Apart from Hyderabad and
Kashmir, most of India was static. There were similar uprisings in Baluchistan. There is a
separatist movement going on there. However what is largely not covered by the media is
that the Baluchistan rebels get a huge amount of training and funding from RAW. [Research
and Analysis Wing]. The current National Security Advisor of India was an ex-RAW agent and
he made a claim saying another 26/11 and you lose Baluchistan. This was a formal
acknowledgement that India has a hand of what goes on in India. what Pakistan is doing in
Kashmir is what India is doing in Baluchistan – saying these people want separation due to
internal dissatisfaction and we have nothing to do with it.

BBC DOCUMENTARY [All the typed text is when sir pauses the documentary and what he
says in between – Each paragraph is a new pause]

While travelling on foot, the journey would become more and more tiring to an extent that
people would start leaving their belongings behind. First would go their carts on which they
had piled their few resources, and then would go their bags of clothes which they had
carried as change. When you have left all your belongings and it did still not seem possible
to get across, kids were abandoned. Crawling infants were left on the side of the roads with
the hope that somebody from the other side would feel compassionate and pick the child
up, and might they do for their kids. 12 million people were abandoning infants on roads
where bullock carts were travelling in huge numbers. The whole situation was miserable.

After than heroics of Independence Nehru receives an anonymous courier with a picture of
a well clogged full of bodies captioned “Freedom?” This is what this whole thing was about?
His secretary would mention that he would often look at this photo with remorse. People
who had the power to make decisions did not consider the importance of human life.

[Photo of Video points on next page]

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