The Great Partition (45 page)

For a convincing account of the severe limitations of this force see Robin Jeffrey, ‘The Punjab Boundary Force and the Problem of Order, August 1947’,

, 8.4 (1974), pp. 491–520. The Boundary Force had an operational existence of 32 days, covered only the twelve most ‘disturbed’ districts of Punjab and included, at its peak, up to 25,000 men, which meant that ‘At its greatest strength, the Boundary Force was in a position to allot four men to every three villages or fewer than two men to a square mile; to the population [of these districts], it stood in a ratio of 1:630’, p. 500.

4.

Moon,

(Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 95.

5.

Official state-sponsored accounts have shown a resilient amnesia and ‘massacres’ comprise a subsidiary appendix tacked on to the greater story of the freedom struggle. There are immense difficulties in disentangling the slivers of memory, anecdotes and fictional accounts preserved by survivors and witnesses. Mapping what took place and placing it in an explanatory framework is no easy task. The jigsaw puzzle of regional and district-level snapshots is still being painstakingly pieced together by historians who are starting to disaggregate the sweeping generalisations and stock imagery of 1947, and realising through sifting through oral history interviews, government archives, personal letters and newspapers that the violence had very particular characteristics; riots and pogroms varied in their intensity, in their precise relationship to the handiwork of local politicians, and in the havoc that they unleashed. For works which specifically address violence in Punjab at the time of Partition see Urvashi Butalia,

(London: Hurst, 2000); Ian Talbot,

(Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1999); Paul Brass, ‘The Partition of India and Retributive Genocide in the Punjab, 1946–7’,

, 5.1 (2003); Pippa Virdee, ‘Partition and Locality: Studies of the Impact of Partition and its Aftermath in the Punjab region 1947–61’ (Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Coventry University, 2004); Ian Talbot,

(New York: Oxford University Press, 2007); Ayesha Jalal, ‘Nation, Reason and Religion: The Punjab's Role in the Partition of India’,

, 8 Aug. 1998; Anders Bjørn Hansen,

(Delhi, 2002); Swarna Aiyar, “August Anarchy”: The Partition Massacres in Punjab, 1947’, in D.A. Low and H. Brasted eds,

(Delhi: Sage, 1998); Ian Copland, ‘The Master and the Maharajas: The Sikh Princes and the East Punjab Massacres of 1947’,

, 36. 3 (2002); Indivar Kamtekar, ‘The Military Ingredient of Communal Violence in Punjab, 1947’,

, 56 (1995), pp. 568–72.

6.

Moon,

, pp. 134–5.

7.

Ishtiaq Ahmed, ‘Forced Migration and Ethnic Cleansing in Lahore in 1947: Some First Person Accounts’, in I. Talbot and Shinder Thandi, eds,

(Karachi and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 132–4.

8.

Urvashi Butalia,

, p. 237.

9.

Whitehead,

(London: School of Oriental African Studies, 1997, 2000); Harcharan Singh Nirman interviewed in Chandigarh, 17 March 1997.

10.

Ibid., Ram Dev interviewed in Chandigarh, 17 March 1947.

11.

Bhisham Sahni,

(Delhi: Penguin, 2001), p. 229.

12.

Whitehead,

; Krishna Baldev Vaid interviewed in Delhi, 12 Jan. 1997.

13.

Jon Stallworthy,

(London: Faber and Faber, 1995), pp. 357–8.

14.

Whitehead,

; Mrs Ashoka Gupta interviewed in Calcutta, 24 April 1997.

15.

Extract from interview with Taran in Menon and Bhasin,

, pp. 46–7.

16.

Whitehead,

; Kuldip Nayar interviewed in Delhi 14 Aug. 1996; Menon and Bhasin,

, p. 32.

17.

Menon and Bhasin,

, p. 76.

18.

Official figures ibid., p. 70. Urvashi Butalia cites 75,000 abductions in

, p. 3. In 1948, Mridula Sarabhai, who organised the Indian recovery operation, believed that the official figure of women abducted in Pakistan – 12,500 – could have been ten times that in reality.

19.

Ian Copland, ‘The Further Shores of Partition: Ethnic Cleansing in Rajasthan, 1947’,

, 160 (1998), pp. 203–39. The violence in Alwar and Bharatpur is also analysed in S. Mayaram, ‘Speech, Silence and the Making of Partition Violence in Mewat'; Shahid Amin and Dipesh Chakrabarty, eds,

(Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 128–61.

20.

Copland, ‘The Further Shores of Partition’, pp. 203–39. There are similarities here with events in the princely states of East Punjab, which Ian Copland has also described in ‘The Master and the Maharajas: The Sikh Princes and the East Punjab Massacres of 1947’,

, 36. 3 (2002).

21.

IOR Mss Eur. C290, Unpublished memoirs of C. Pearce (UP Police, 1945–7)

. 1977.

22.

Whitehead,

, B.L. Dutt interviewed at home in Chandigarh, 15 March 1997.

23.

Moon,

, p. 164.

24.

IOR Mss Eur. F161. Notes of E.S. Thomson, Railway Protection Force,

. Sept. 1947 [undated] see also IOR Mss Eur. 147, Demi official reports by D. Cruickshank, East India Railways, 13 Sept. and 22 Sept. 1947.

25.

Ibid.

26.

Ian Copland,

(London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), pp. 156–7.

27.

USSA 845.105/8–1547 – 845.105/12.3149 Box 6082, 8 Sept. 1947.

28.

, vol. 6, p. 319. Patel to Nehru, 4 May, 1948.

29.

IOR L/PJ/5/167, Fortnightly reports, Oct. 1946.

30.

(Lahore: Punjab Riot Sufferers' Relief Committee,

. 1947), unpaginated.

31.

G.D. Khosla,

(Delhi and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 133.

32.

AICC, CL-9 (File 1) (1946–7).

33.

BBC news online: ‘Indian director Mahesh Bhatt is hoping to make the first ever Indian film shot entirely in Pakistan – a project he described as a “South Asian Schindler's List”.’ 16 May 2003.

34.

M. Hasan, ed.,

(Delhi: Lotus Collection, 1995), vol. 2, p. 96.

35.

AICC, G–18, Part 2 (1947–8), M. Brelvi to Sadiq Ali, 24 Oct. 1947.

36.

Whitehead,

, Dalit Joginder, interviewed 18 March 1997.

37.

Ian Talbot's introduction to Ahmad Salim, ed.,

(Delhi: tara-india research press, 2006), p. 6.

38.

Whitehead,

, Shanti Seghal interviewed in Delhi, 1 Feb. 1947.

39.

Moon,

, p. 120.

40.

AICC, G–10 (1947), Report of Meerut District Magistrate, 13 Feb. 1947.

41.

IOR L/PJ/5/168, Colville to Wavell, 16 March 1947.

42.

, vol. 6, p. 266. R. Prasad to V. Patel, 14 May 1948.

1.

P.N. Chopra, ed.,

(New Delhi: Vision Books, 2001), pp. 164–9.

2.

Richard Symonds,

(Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 34.

3.

Partition Emergency Committee Minutes, 16 Sept. 1947, reprinted in appendix to H.M. Patel,

ed. Sucheta Mahajan (New Delhi: Rupa and Co., 2005), p. 360.

4.

Partition Emergency Committee Minutes, 16 Sept. 1947, reprinted in appendix to Patel,

, p. 360.

5.

Alan Campbell-Johnson,

(London: Robert Hale, 1951), p. 180; Judith Brown,

(London and New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), p. 176.

6.

Symonds,

, pp. 33–4. Many stories of Nehru's agitated state were in circulation at this time, including one that he had kicked a group of

, or Hindu holy men, who had blockaded the entrance to his house and refused to move: see USSA 845.00/8–147 – 845.00/12–3147 Box 6071, 5 Aug. 1947.

7.

Ayub Khan,

(New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967), p. 17.

8.

M.M. Kudaisya,

(Delhi and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 243. Birla to Katju, 29 Sept. 1947.

9.

Penderel Moon,

(Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 154.

10.

Extract written by the Urdu journalist Shorish Kashmiri reproduced in M. Hasan,

(Delhi: Lotus Collection, 1995), vol. 2, p. 156.

11.

S.M. Burke, ed.,

(Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 14. Press conference, 14 July 1947.

12.

Suhasini Das, ‘A Partition Diary’, trans. Kumkum Chakravarti,

, 510 (Feb. 2002).

13.

F. Tuker,

(London: Cassell, 1950), p. 530.

14.

M. Hasan, ed.,

, vol. 2, p. 194.

15.

Epstein Papers (Private Collection), Letter to Parents, 15 May 1947.

16.

IOR Mss Eur. 147 Demi-official reports by D. Cruickshank, East India Railways, 13 Sept. and 22 Sept. 1947.

17.

Mahatma Gandhi,

(Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, 1948), 28 Oct. 1947.

18.

Symonds,

, p. 33.

19.

, 2nd ser., vol. 4, p. 441. Letter to Provincial Premiers, 15 Oct. 1947.

20.

Campbell-Johnson,

, pp. 178–9.

21.

(Islamabad: Govt of Pakistan, 1993), p. 256. Jinnah's speech, 14 Sept. 1947 on the establishment of the Quaid e Azam Relief Fund.

22.

(Govt of India, Delhi, 1948), photograph and caption facing p. 4.

23.

R. Menon and K. Bhasin,

(Delhi: Kali for Women, 1998), p. 232.

24.

Symonds,

, p. 54; Tuker,

, p. 476.

25.

USSA, 845.00/8–147 – 845.00/12–3147 Box 6071, Howard Donovan to Secretary of State, Washington, 30 Sept. 1947. Encl. extracts from a personal letter written by a retired British officer (unidentified), Simla 17 Sept. 1947.