status within the British Commonwealth of Nations was Ireland. On December 6, 1922, exercising its right under the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921, Protestant-majority Northern Ireland seceded from the Irish Free State to remain part of the British Empire. It was the historic tension between Protestants and Catholics, dating back to the Battle of Boyne in 1690 between Protestant William III of Orange and Catholic James II, which led to the division of Ireland.
A quarter century after Irelandâs partition, the Indian subcontinent became the next colony of Britain to end up divided into the Dominion of India and the Dominion of Pakistan. Irreconcilable tensions between majority Hindus and minority Muslims were the cause of this. The buildup to this partition, its enforcement, and its immediate and later consequences were of far greater import to the region and the world at large than the division of Ireland.
What was common between the two partitions was religious affiliation. In the case of Ireland, it was different sects within Christianity, whereas in united but colonized India it was a clash between polytheistic Hinduism and monotheistic Islam. In sheer numbers, there were 250 million Hindus and 90 million Muslims in the subcontinent on the eve of the partition. Together, they formed nearly one-fifth of the human race.
As a result of the two-way migration of minorities across the new borders created in August 1947, millions of families were uprooted from their hearths and homes of centuries. They left behind their immovable properties and most of the movable goods. The respective governments confiscated the assets of the departed with a plan to compensate those on the other side who had lost their worldly possessions because of thepartition. This scheme worked well in the two parts of Punjab and adjoining Delhi, even though the aggregate assets of the Hindus and Sikhs in West Punjab exceeded those of the Muslims in East Punjab and Delhi.
The case of the small province of Sindh differed from Punjabâs in two ways. It remained united, and it was spared the communal carnage of Punjab. But in two major cities of Sindh the limited violence against Hindus, who were far better off economically and educationally than Muslims, was enough to cause a steady exodus of Sindhi Hindus. Unlike the Hindus and Sikhs of West Pakistan, however, they did not have a part of Sindh retained by pre-independence India to which they could migrate. As a consequence, traveling in comparatively small numbers over many months by train and ship, they ended up in Indian cities and large towns along an arc in western India, stretching from Delhi to the southern reaches of Bombay province, which was populated solely by the Marathi-speaking people.
My family, based in the Sindhi town of Larkana, belonged to this category of refugees from West Pakistan. We traveled by ship from Karachi to the Port of Okha in north Gujarat and ended up in a sprawling, empty military barracks built during World War II, thirty-five miles southeast of central Bombay. These were now called Kalyan (Refugee) Camps, numbered 1 to 5. Here, in a row of single rooms fronted by a veranda, accommodation was free, with the large room serving as the living-cum-sleeping space, and an area in the veranda allocated for cooking.
Like refugees elsewhere before and since then, we built up our lives slowly. I managed to pursue a university education, thanks to government loans to the children of refugees from Pakistan. There was no hope or wish to return to what had become the âotherâ country. That door remained shut.
The story of my personal journey from serving as a qualified engineer on a tube well drilling project in Gujarat to becoming a self-taught professional writer in London belongs to another category of my output than the one to which the present work does.
This book on the troubled relations between India and Pakistan chronicles not only political and
A quarter century after Irelandâs partition, the Indian subcontinent became the next colony of Britain to end up divided into the Dominion of India and the Dominion of Pakistan. Irreconcilable tensions between majority Hindus and minority Muslims were the cause of this. The buildup to this partition, its enforcement, and its immediate and later consequences were of far greater import to the region and the world at large than the division of Ireland.
What was common between the two partitions was religious affiliation. In the case of Ireland, it was different sects within Christianity, whereas in united but colonized India it was a clash between polytheistic Hinduism and monotheistic Islam. In sheer numbers, there were 250 million Hindus and 90 million Muslims in the subcontinent on the eve of the partition. Together, they formed nearly one-fifth of the human race.
As a result of the two-way migration of minorities across the new borders created in August 1947, millions of families were uprooted from their hearths and homes of centuries. They left behind their immovable properties and most of the movable goods. The respective governments confiscated the assets of the departed with a plan to compensate those on the other side who had lost their worldly possessions because of thepartition. This scheme worked well in the two parts of Punjab and adjoining Delhi, even though the aggregate assets of the Hindus and Sikhs in West Punjab exceeded those of the Muslims in East Punjab and Delhi.
The case of the small province of Sindh differed from Punjabâs in two ways. It remained united, and it was spared the communal carnage of Punjab. But in two major cities of Sindh the limited violence against Hindus, who were far better off economically and educationally than Muslims, was enough to cause a steady exodus of Sindhi Hindus. Unlike the Hindus and Sikhs of West Pakistan, however, they did not have a part of Sindh retained by pre-independence India to which they could migrate. As a consequence, traveling in comparatively small numbers over many months by train and ship, they ended up in Indian cities and large towns along an arc in western India, stretching from Delhi to the southern reaches of Bombay province, which was populated solely by the Marathi-speaking people.
My family, based in the Sindhi town of Larkana, belonged to this category of refugees from West Pakistan. We traveled by ship from Karachi to the Port of Okha in north Gujarat and ended up in a sprawling, empty military barracks built during World War II, thirty-five miles southeast of central Bombay. These were now called Kalyan (Refugee) Camps, numbered 1 to 5. Here, in a row of single rooms fronted by a veranda, accommodation was free, with the large room serving as the living-cum-sleeping space, and an area in the veranda allocated for cooking.
Like refugees elsewhere before and since then, we built up our lives slowly. I managed to pursue a university education, thanks to government loans to the children of refugees from Pakistan. There was no hope or wish to return to what had become the âotherâ country. That door remained shut.
The story of my personal journey from serving as a qualified engineer on a tube well drilling project in Gujarat to becoming a self-taught professional writer in London belongs to another category of my output than the one to which the present work does.
This book on the troubled relations between India and Pakistan chronicles not only political and
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