www.sacw.net | August 2002
Partition - Why Shy Away from Debate?
by Dr. Iftikhar H. Malik
Both India and Pakistan are celebrating the 55th anniversary of their independence. While India, confronted with the Hindutva unilateralism, may try to reaffirm a unitary form of nationalism, Pakistanis would attempt to reiterate the historicity of Pakistan. Even after almost six decades of their statehood, these neighbours are still engaged in an undiminished and immensely dangerous othering, and from official parlance to the textbooks, both continue negating each other's arguments for sovereignty. To countless Pakistanis, India is totally Hindu with all the abominable and derogatory characteristics, whereas to their Indian counterparts, Pakistan is a fundamentalist Muslim threat and a vivisection of a once united India. Within these claims and counter claims--all being made in a total vacuum due to lack of any mutual Indo-Pakistani contacts for so long--one may tend to forget the fact that neither the de-Indianisation of Pakistan is fruitful for its inhabitants nor the demolition of Indo-Muslim culture offers any panacea to India's plural challenges. Both the peoples must be helped and guided towards a process of an inclusive appropriation instead of an abrasive rejection.
Within this conflict paradigm it is easily forgotten that more than mere independence, decolonisation all over the world has been taking place in the wake of and through partition, though in each case it has been unique and often painful. This article looks at South Asian Partition within its complex historiographical and human perspectives underlining the need to revisit the subject by historians and others in a more holistic and interpretive way away from sterile, routine, repetitive, and, in some cases, dangerous accounts.
Irrespective of the factors and forces spawning decolonisation, partition as a deimperialising process, is rooted in the contemporary, post-Columbian parlance of modernity. The Papal arbitration between Spain and Portugal over the delimitation of the 'New World' may be considered its beginning in a modern sense followed by the U.S.- Canadian demarcations in North America. In 1921, the partition of Ireland resulted in the emergence of a predominantly Catholic Republic in the south leaving Ulster in the north as a contentious issue not only between the Protestants/Loyalists and Catholics/Republicans but also between the United Kingdom and the Irish Republic. Like Kashmir and Palestine, it keeps on taking its toll on all sides. The partition(s) of the Ottoman Empire in all the three continents over the last two centuries, the demarcation of arbitrary boundaries in the Middle East by the Mandatory powers (Palestine, Cyprus) and such other 'partitions' of similar ethnic communities and adjacent territories (Kurds, for instance) have engendered several regional and global conflicts which, according to reasonable accounts, cost 150 millions deaths in the nineteenth century and 180 million in the twentieth. The scores of contemporary conflicts including those in South Asia, to some extent, are rooted in such arbitrary decisions, where the receding colonial hierarchy made hasty decisions or did not fully think through their long-term ramifications. In the same manner, the nationalist elite failed to rectify these legacies and by simply subscribing to irredentist and unitary nationalisms, have rather exacerbated the miseries of their populaces directly affected through these early and arbitrary territorial divisions. The most recent partitions have taken place within the Balkans where the Bosnians and Kosovars have been the worst affectees. A visit to Sarajevo, Srebrenica, Mostar, Zagreb, Belgrade and Ahimici--right in the heart of Europe--sends shivers through the spine.
Like the parceling of Central Asia during the Great Game, within South Asia, partition as a process of territorial delimitation to suit the imperial and administrative measures was often put into force. The Durand Line of 1895 or the delimitation of Sino-Indian borders--with all their respective ambiguities and arbitrariness --are important case studies. The 'separation' of the Frontier from Punjab in 1901 and subsequently its designation as a separate province, evolution of the various tribal agencies under a patronising system and then the partition of Bengal in 1905 are some of the earliest examples of this politico-administrative engineering under the Raj. Irrespective of their usefulness or contentious nature, such arrangements including the separation of Sindh from Bombay in 1935-6 were momentous decisions, which only a powerful Raj could undertake. It is amazing to see how the imperial boundaries have remained sacrosanct even so long after independence. Political analysts believe that it is just in handful cases that the boundaries have shifted and that too either due to external factors or simply by voluntary surrender. In the 1990s, boundaries changed due to the dissolution of the Soviet Empire and the voluntary bifurcation of Czechoslovakia though the erstwhile demarcations of these 'territories' became the new international frontiers. The post-1947 partition of the Indian Punjab following the evolution of several states within India on ethno-lingual basis has been no less a momentous process undertaken during the recent times, and likewise the agonising and military-led mismanaged partition of Pakistan in 1971. It is quite intriguing to note how independent states, using symbolism and all their resources, try to jealously protect these boundaries and the entire nation-building effort turns subservient to the essentialisation of territorial sanctity. Without suggesting any conspiracy factor or other such presumptuous generalisation, one can merely opine that partition as a process of decolonisation and of nation-engineering needs revisiting by scholars, which sadly has not been the case so far at least in Pakistan!
The Indian nationalist/secular historians--the pioneers of modern historiography--while offering a counterpoise to the imperial premise of 'giving' independence to the colonies interpreted Partition as a major trauma masterminded through an imperial misdemeanour. To their Pakistani counterparts, Partition has been simply independence with all the accompanying sacrifices, yet consolidating a territory-based cultural unity. Both the interpretations have been sadly simplistic and lack substantive understanding and only beef up the irreconciliability of the Indo-Pak discord. The total break-up of mutual communication between the neighbours--against the wishes of their leaders such as Jinnah and Gandhi-- and then the sheer emphasis on differences: secularism versus Islam, or democracy versus military dictatorship--did not allow a much-needed and conducive discourse. Both the states and their henchmen have based their cases on mutual denials--one of the greatest ironies of our times.
Ishtiaq H. Qureshi and other 'pioneers', in consonance with the official project of nationalising Pakistan, always emphasised the inevitability of Pakistan. They presented Pakistan as an old nation seeking a territorial definition. The Muslim nationhood was viewed within the rise of Islam in the region, though a few laudatory remarks were also reserved for the Indus Valley Civilisation.The loss of Muslim political power under the Later Mughals amidst the growing Company's rule, the post-1857 regenerative efforts such as by Sir Syed and so on were offered as the formative stages towards quest for Pakistan or what Francis Robinson called 'the Muslim separatism'. The centrality of the Aligarh, the preeminence of the Urdu-speaking elite, Khilafat's politicisation of Muslims in this part of India and then the guidance of Allama Iqbal and the Quaid's statesmanship became the essential phases and familiar stages of this discourse. This Grand Narrative of Pakistan, at the expense of class, regional, gender, economic, social or countless other factors and forces {for instance, Christians in Punjab!} especially in the areas making Pakistan, has been essentialised and officialised to an extent that any alternative discourse or argument becomes a heresy. Even a known historian like KK Aziz, indignant of shoddy historical details, has unreservedly subscribed to this High History based on episodic details. Not a single senior historian has ever tried to understand the regional roots of Pakistan or has attempted an unbiased and relocative perspective on leaders like Badshah Khan, G, M. Syed, H.S. Suhrawardy, Fazl-i-Husain, A. K. Azad; instead the Quaid has been used as a demolition man to deconstruct these ethno-regional leaders. Sadly, even after half a century, they are the Others in our historiography.
While Mushirul Hasan and a few other Indian Muslims have tried to remind their readers of the identity crisis especially confronted by Muslims 'left behind'; in Pakistan, the weak nature of Humanities and especially of historical research hindered any alternative interpretations. Aziz Ahmed's pioneering contributions in intellectual history have been carried on but only by Rafiuddin Ahmed and Farzana Sheikh, Bangladeshi expatriates in the West. Some liberal, leftist historians such as Mubarak Ali have, over the years, tried to look at economic, social and other societal trajectories but the conformist historians keep on rehashing the dead discourse of the Grand Narrative. Lifeless and uninspiring volumes on the Quaid and Pakistan movement abound but nobody including the new generation students bother to look at them. Works by a few expatriate scholars remain usually unacknowledged as a 'no-go area'. Self-imposed parametres abound though some Urdu works like on the Anjumans in Punjab and such other regional histories totally owing to individual efforts offer some fresh air. Overall, an engaging historical discourse is absent from the corridors of the universities or other big-name research institutions. Most of our current historians like our political scientists are simply rehashing narratives or compiling published documents without any effort to engage themselves in the mainstream debate. On the other hand, imperial school of history has been followed by the Cambridge school, leftist interpretations and, of course, subaltern studies. Historians in India and the West are focusing on ethno-regional studies, gender issues, peasants, tribals, environment, class formation, and such other realms of historical discourse. The purpose-oriented workshops, scholarly journals, internet discussion groups and informal moots are the features of this exciting tradition where both teaching and research benefit and a younger generation of historians is inducted into a self-actualising profession.
In Pakistan, a few scholars such as Tariq Rahman have made important contributions though most of the interactive efforts including networking have yet to be undertaken. The scholars on Pakistani Chairs abroad have, in several cases, not fully utilised their potentials and institutional facilities to operate as agents and interlocutors of such a tradition. An ironic characterisation of these highly expensive Chairs is 'a wonderful pension scheme without much ado'. Teaching, researching, publications, conferencing and research supervisions are largely absent from their remit.
The works on Partition or independence in reference to Pakistan are mostly in literary areas, which are well known to an Urdu reader. The studies like those of Urvashi Buttalia (based on the memories of Partition women sufferers) or of Gyan Panday (recently published by Cambridge University Press) are quite important contributions and guiding light for Pakistani and Bangladeshi historians. While reviewing Gyan's laudable effort along with Sunil Khilnani of Birkbeck College, Isabel Hilton, a well-known author and a good friend, wondered about the lack of historical debate in Pakistan. This was on the BBC Radio 3 a few months back and my answer was not different from what I am positing here. The studies by Ian Talbot, David Gilmartin, Sarah Ansari, Barrington Moore, Taj Hashmi and such other historians have established a strong tradition of regional histories that may be further expanded in the country. Ayesha Jalal's research has also started to take aboard new, formative and equally significant issues of ideology and identity, absent from her early works. A few recent studies in Pakistan on women or groups such as Khaksars or Red Shirts are a noteworthy trend yet there is urgency for rigorous theorisation, comparative analysis and innovative thesis. In addition to Punjab, other regions and communities equally require serious scholarly attention and our official institutions and historians should not be afraid of any challenging discourse. On the contrary, it may add to the confidence and profile of the scholarly debate, away from an essentialised verdict that has already proven fruitless. In other words, history from below could be an exciting terrain, independent of a dull, repetitive Grand Narrative.
In 1997, in a number of conferences on South Asia at Bath, London and Copenhagen, Partition remained the major moot point. The comparison between Punjab and Bengal, the post-1947 historiography and 'voices from below' were the focal points--some of these works have since been published by the OUP, Karachi. However, there is a greater need to develop small, purpose-built workshops and conferences on such academic issues to encourage young historians to debate these crucial issues. Pakistan is a fully-fledged, sovereign nation and its regimes must trust its academics and intellectuals. Unnecessary curbs on their research such as a no-contact policy vis-a-vis India should be replaced by more confident and forward-looking measures in the larger national interest. Refocusing of issues and new interpretations even challenging some long-held truths should not be frowned upon in the name of a shallow conformity. The faculties should have short-term and long-term research and teaching plans, and the courses should be often radically revised with new books, IT input, fresher assessment strategies, participatory teaching and latest research techniques. University teaching should be through competitive processes and endowed with enviable emoluments so that the best brains could join the profession. The preservation of regional archives and local history projects need to be inducted in league with the research institutes and academia so that the nation could explore its archival resourcefulness and related potentials.
(Dr. Malik is an Oxford-based academic and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, UK. Author of several books and research papers, his forthcoming volume, Islam and Modernity, is being published by Pluto Press.)
Partition of 1947 - India - Pakistan: Some scattered resources