August 1947 the subcontinent witnessed the end of British colonial rule and independent republics of India and Pakistan emerged on map of the world. This episode also resulted in the greatest mass migration in human history when millions of people migrated from both sides of the newly established borders. This migration brought untold misery and death for millions of people and even 76 years later pain and horrors of the killings cannot be completely forgotten. At least three generations of Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs have tried to forget these horrible incidents but Political leaders like the newly elected Narendra Modi are still hell bent upon making political capital out of bitter memories of the partition for projection of their political agenda.
Modi is a past master in the art of promoting hatred, maligning the Muslims and promoting his political vision of a Hindu supremacist India and a complete negation of secular state founded by, founding fathers of India. The idea is to promote the philosophy of Hindutva again and again to keep his people from asking difficult questions about price rise, unemployment, law and order or foreign policy issues or even the touchy issue of civil rights or the center and state relations.
The latest controversial salvo fired by Narendra Modi is his resolve to now declare 14th August as Partition Horrors Remembrance Day. August 15 is India’s Independence Day and 14th August happens to be celebrated as Independence Day in Pakistan so he wants both countries to mourn and celebrate on same day of 14th August that is mourning in India and celebration in Pakistan. Delivering his Independence Day speech last year from the ramparts of Delhi’s historic Red Fort, Prime Minister Modi declared: “My dear countrymen, while we celebrate our freedom today, we cannot forget pain of partition that still pierces through the hearts of all Indians. This has been one of the biggest tragedies of the last century. After attaining freedom, these people were forgotten too soon. Just yesterday India has taken an emotional decision in their memory. We will henceforth commemorate August 14 as “Partition Horrors Remembrance Day” in the memory of all the victims of partition.
“Those who were subjected to inhuman circumstances, suffered torturous treatment, they could not even receive a dignified cremation. They must all remain alive and never get erased from our memories. The decision of celebrating “Partition Horrors Remembrance Day” on the 75th Independence Day is a befitting tribute from every Indian to them. ”In a fiery speech lasting about an hour and a half Modi boasted about his high profile development projects and his promise to lift every Indian regardless of caste color or creed from the misery of poverty to a comfortable living standard and according to him his country is now on the verge of a 25 years period of glory, prosperity and comfort. There are no two opinions about the tragic happenings and the mass killings as a result of the partition and it goes without saying that all the victims of that historical tragedy deserve all the sympathy and support from all right thinking people of the subcontinent. Ironically Mr. Modi is asking for sympathy and support for only the Hindu and Sikh victims and according to his version the Muslims did not suffer at all.
Typical Modi ideas based on his political philosophy of creating a Hindu state and destroying the edifice of a secular country. Moving on he added “Those who were subjected to inhuman circumstances, suffered torturous treatment, they could not even receive a dignified cremation”. Now recall his speeches during the 2017 Uttar Pradesh assembly election. In them, he pointedly castigated the previous Samajwadi Party-led Uttar Pradesh government for neglecting the maintenance of Hindu cremation grounds (smashan) while lavishing attention on Muslim burial grounds (kabristan). There were other instances too, when Modi sent the same message in a bid to energize Hindu votes at the cost of India’s Muslims. One has ample reasons, therefore, to smell a rat in Modi’s latest proclamation.What Modi said was soon buttressed by his party colleagues. Vijay Chauthaiwale, in-charge of BJP’s foreign affairs department, went on to dissemble:
“Imagine a situation: In a joint family, a baby is born and on the same day, the eldest and most respected person in the family is brutally murdered. While everyone will celebrate the arrival of the newborn … will anyone argue that in this celebration, everyone should simply forget the murder — not even mourn, forget about wiping the tears, of close ones in the family?” Mark his use of eldest and most respected person, here he clearly meant to connote Hindus.
Moreover, who is preventing anyone from mourning or wiping the tears? Volumes upon volumes of research on the Partition (including oral histories) demonstrate how much of a tragedy it was for Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs alike.Even today there are no exact figures available regarding the casualties and suffering for each community that is Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs but it is clear that he casualty figures are in the millions. These figures vary in different localities but the physical and psychological pain and suffering was widespread in all the communities and not only the Hindu community.Recently, after the fortnightly column of one of India’s noted interviewers and commentators, Karan Thapar, was published in the Asian Age on the anti-Muslim riots in Jammu in 1947, the paper’s management felt uncomfortable and kept his future columns on hold. Probably that is the end of his column. Thapar’s “crime” was to write about the massacre of Jammu’s Muslims during October and November 1947. The editors would do well to note that preventing a column from appearing in print does not gloss over the facts of the matter: A large number of Muslims were indeed killed in Jammu.
Have we not read how the anti-Hindu pogrom in Noakhali (East Bengal, now Bangladesh) was avenged in Tarapur (Bihar) and GarhMukteshwar (Uttar Pradesh) resulting in huge Muslim casualties?
—The writer is Professor of History, based in Islamabad.
