By: Alquamah Nasir
The Seeds of Partition
Punjab is the center of Hindu Moslem conflicts that radiate from there to all other parts of India. (Roy, 1926)
The cultural roots of Indian nationalism owed far more to religious ideals reinterpreted and reconfigured in an imaginative fashion than has been acknowledged (Jalal, 1998). The Indian National movement saw the unity of the Indians against a common enemy but do we really think that this kind of unity would still be in fashion after the removal of a common enemy. The call of Lala Lajpat Rai for the Hindu majoritarian part of Punjab sowed the seeds of an idea that religion can be a basis of the partition of a certain any graphical land and it has also given motivation to the partition of Bengal on a religious basis.
The communalization of the people finds its genesis in the British imperial policies. British imperial policies in India provided a congenial climate for emergence growth and popularity of communal organization (Bandyopadhyay, 2004). After the civil disobedience movement Congress emerging as a dominant political party in 1937 cause unrest among the many political parties. The landowners of many states lost their authority over the people and they used communal rift and casteism as a tool to gain their authority and also mobilize their vote bank.
The British also promoted divide and rule to weaken the National movement. The Britishers used the communal card to check the growth of Indian Nationalism (Bandyopadhyay, 2004). Adding to this point, the investigation of the cultural roots of nationalism leaves unexamined the myriad subaltern contestations of an emerging mainstream nationalism which like its adversary colonialism may well have only achieved dominance without hegemony. (Jalal, 1998).
The Two-Nation Theory
Hindu India’s vision of Bharat Varsha was dramatically at odds with individual and collective Muslim belief in the absolute sovereignty of a universal God (Jalal, 1998).
Many political leaders started to envision the future of India after the transfer of power. And many political leaders tried to influence the masses by spreading fear, anxiety, and uncertainty regarding the Akhand Bharat. The role which religion played in the realization of the dream of partition was a remarkable one. Let’s explore the administrative inefficacy that an Akhand Bharat would face.
Mohammad Iqbal a profound Muslim scholar said that the idea of separation of Church and state bordered on profanity and could never happen in Islam as from the beginning of civil society Islam has received a set of laws from the Quran and also the principle of ijtihad or independent judgment allowed them to modify and adjust to the imperative of social change without abandoning the Islamic path.
And such kind of rule could not be employed in a land that is an assimilation of various cultures and traditions, a reflection of which we can clearly notice in our own Judicial System.
Md. Ali Jinnah once proclaimed that the two religions are, in fact, two distinct social order.
The prime reason for the league’s proposal of Pakistan is motivated by the actions of Hindu Mahasabha and its paramilitary wing the RSS, whose charges on the Congress were that it was unrepresentative of Hindu opinion (National Commission on Historical and Cultural Research [NCHCR], 1944).
And when C.Rajagopalacharya drafted the 1944 plan of partition Hindu Mahasabha did not oppose. We see the Muslim League and Hindu Mahasabha as a reflection of each other in their motive to build nations on the grounds of religion.
Deep-seated fear
The political party leaders of both the factions promoted an Idea that the majority of the latter good lead to the extermination of the former and vice versa. This fact could not be denied that Hindu majority rule would not try and efface the marks of Islamic impact on the subcontinent (Jalal, 1998). And the fear of extermination and fear against each other strengthen the roots of communalism in India and also felicitated the process of partition and aided the supporters of it.
This fear finds its genesis when religiously inform cultural differences were emphasized to claim regional rights but deemed eligible automate if insisted by a geographically desperate numerical minority as the criteria for distribution are natural rights. And from here religion came into Indian politics and majoritarianism became a tool of dominance as well as an element of fear.
In a nutshell, I would like to conclude that religion has played a crucial role in the division of India and many other States before and the political leaders and political parties have exploited the minds of the masses by instilling the fear of the existence of their culture tradition by a majority religion. And one can never deny the role of religion as a catalyst in the partition.
References
Bandyopadhyay, S (2004) From Plassey to Partition: a history of modern India. (pp. 405- 472)
Jalal, A.(1998). Nation, Reason, and Religion: Punjab’s Role in Partition of India. Economic and political weekly, Vol.33, No. 32, 2183-2190. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/4407076?read-now=1&seq=2#page_scan_tab_contents
Roy, M.N. (1988) ‘Punjab Money-lenders Bill’ in Sibnarayan Ray (ed). Selected Works of M N Roy. (pp.439).
NCHCR (1944) Secret Punjab police abstract of intelligence. Lahore, Islamabad.
Image source: Washington Post
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