With talk of Partition emerged the most violent and horrific riots in the history of the subcontinent. From Calcutta to Bihar and Punjab, a crazy frenzy was taking over both Hindus and Muslims of a country that was still under British rule.
A situation that was quickly getting out of hand saw the leaders of the hour neither condemning nor making any attempts to stop the violence. Were these the leaders that would eventually lead India and Pakistan towards Independence? Did they know they were leaving behind a bloody legacy that would come to haunt generations of Indians and Pakistanis?
Read on to get an insight into the darkest time of India’s history just as she was getting ready for a new identity in the world.
Until the early 1900s, Hindus and Muslims of the subcontinent were united in their fight against the British, fighting for Independence. Eventually, with the formation of the Muslim League, and the leaderships of Jinnah and Nehru not quite in agreement with each other, it increasingly became evident that independence would come with the formation of two separate states: India and Pakistan.
Could the partition – an event that led to countless horrors – be pegged to two people, influential leaders in their own right? Or were there other factors, like the inability to imagine a populace so hungry for a bloodbath?
Read on to find out what led to Jinnah and Nehru becoming the faces of two nations that would emerge out of the struggle for Independence.
Death and suffering were – and still are – the consequence of how Britain discharged her responsibilities to a now divided subcontinent.’ It is hard to imagine another episode in history where the outcome is so opposed to the professed aims.
From decisions about Partition, the territories remaining a part of the Commonwealth, to India and Pakistan’s delineation happening in under five weeks by someone who had not travelled east of Gibraltar before, it all looks like the end of a shabby tale of procrastination and deceit at the hands of the British.
Read on to find out what exactly went down as India prepared to reawaken to a new dawn on 15 August 1947.
The last viceroy had enormous charm, style and a capacity for hard work, and was wholly committed to success. Did that make him a great man?’
Lord Mountbatten was appointed to oversee the transition of British India to Independence, which was to happen no later than 30 June 1948. With unbridled ambition and the desire to have the British leave India smoothly, his appointment and his decisions bring up many questions.
Read on to know more about what led to Mountbatten becoming India’s last Viceroy, and his intentions as he worked towards securing a safe exit for the British from India.
The ‘uniting’ of India under the Imperial rule has always been considered as a great British achievement. However, a close look at British politics of the time paints quite a different picture.
From believing that India was home to ‘backward races’ with no capacity for self-government to continuing to use Hindu-Muslim antagonism as a tool to prolong British rule in India, Churchill’s intentions in the last few decades of the Raj are quite revealing.
Read on to get an insight into India as envisioned by Winston Churchill, one of the most influential leaders in British history.
If anyone can hold a mirror up to a society that has lived through Partition, it is Manto. Whether he’s narrating the story of a worried father searching for his missing daughter or a Sikh man struggling to live with himself after a particularly horrific round of looting during riots, he has the masterful skill of making a point with the deepest impact.
Manto was arguably the most prolific writer of the Independence era. Read on, as he proves it yet again through two of his most heart-wrenching stories in The Horrors of Partition.
Two travellers on a train. One starts telling the other about an event that happened in 1919 in Amritsar, about the son of a prostitute who stood up to the British, sacrificing his life in the process. But that isn’t the worst part of the story. As the listener, enraptured, hears the storyteller reveal the rest of Thaila Kunjar’s story, he can’t help but question whether the storyteller was just a simple ‘onlooker’.
One of the most impressive storytellers to come out of the Independence era, Manto truly portrays his prowess in ‘A Tale of the Year 1919’. Poignant yet powerful, this is not just a story about martyrdom and bravery but also about prostitutes and their children and their status in the country.
Rub Nawaz’s and Ram Singh’s families have been neighbours and friends since their grandfathers’ time. Both Nawaz and Singh, born a few days apart from each other, went to the same school, signed up for the army together, even fought alongside each other during the Great War. But in a strange turn of events, they now find themselves part of two different armies that are fighting each other for Kashmir.
Read on, as Manto looks at the aftermath of Partition in his inimitable style, replete with humour while cleverly making a point.
India is just a few years away from Independence; cries of ‘Inqilab Zindabad’ have been reverberating in Amritsar, the Swadeshi movement is in full swing and that is when we first meet ‘Shahzada’ Ghulam Ali, caught in the fervour of the fight for freedom. His legendary speeches are the talk of the town and it is just a matter of time before he is imprisoned – quite the badge of honour when you are going to jail for your country.
But before he goes to jail, he and Nigar must marry, and they will only marry in the presence of Babaji, who insists on their spending time at the ashram, where they just might learn a new definition of freedom and what it means to them.
Subtly brilliant and typically Manto, ‘For Freedom’s Sake’ is a surprisingly insightful take on something we usually take for granted: the right to freedom.
A few years after Partition, the thought occurred to the governments of Pakistan and Hindustan that, as with ordinary prisoners, an exchange of lunatics was in order.’
Bishan Singh, an inmate of Lahore asylum, is set to be transferred to India. But what he would really like is to stay where his home town – Toba Tek Singh – is, except that no one is telling him whether it falls in India or Pakistan. Which is also because no one knows for sure what lies where any more. As the day of the transfer draws near, Bishan Singh’s agony escalates. Is there no one who can tell him where Toba Tek Singh lies?
A satirical take on Partition and the relationship between India and Pakistan, Toba Tek Singh is classic Manto – quietly revealing and every bit entertaining.
