Partition Literature of India

2069 Words5 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: The disadvantages of the partition of india

The Partition of India
"A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance." -Jawarhalal Nehru
14 August, 1947, saw the birth of the new Islamic Republic of Pakistan. At midnight the next day India won its freedom from colonial rule, ending nearly 350 years of British presence in India. During the struggle for freedom, Gandhi had written an appeal "To Every Briton" to free their possessions in Asia and Africa, especially India (Philips and Wainwright, 567). The British left India divided in two. The two countries were founded on the basis of religion, with Pakistan as an Islamic state and India as a secular one.
Whether the partition of these countries was wise and whether it was done too soon is still under debate. Even the imposition of an official boundary has not stopped conflict between them. Boundary issues, left unresolved by the British, have caused two wars and continuing strife between India and Pakistan.
The partition of India and its freedom from colonial rule set a precedent for nations such as Israel, which demanded a separate homeland because of the irreconcilable differences between the Arabs and the Jews. The British left Israel in May 1948, handing the question of division over to the UN. Un-enforced UN Resolutions to map out boundaries between Israel and Palestine has led to several Arab-Israeli wars and the conflict still continues.

Timeline
1600-British East India Company is established.
1857-The Indian Mutiny or The First War of Independence.
1858-The India Act: power transferred to British Government.
1885-Indian National Congress founded by A. O. Hume to unite all Indians and strengthen bonds with Britain.
1905-First Partition of Bengal for administrative purposes. Gives the Muslims a majority in that state.
1906-All India Muslim League founded to promote Muslim political interests.
1909-Revocation of Partition of Bengal. Creates anti-British and anti-Hindu sentiments among Muslims as they lose their majority in East Bengal.
1916-Lucknow Pact. The Congress and the League unite in demand for greater self-government. It is denied by the British.
1919-Rowlatt Acts, or black acts passed over opposition by Indian members of the Supreme Legislative Council. These were peacetime extensions of wartime emergency measures. Their passage causes further disaffection with the British and leads to protests. Amritsar Massacre. General Dyer opens fire on 20,000 unarmed Indian civilians at a political demonstration against the Rowlatt Acts.

Show More
Related

  • Middle East Dbq Essay

    994 Words  | 2 Pages

    International conflicts have contributed to regional conflict in Southwest Asia by forming borders without regards to the different ethnic

    Read More

  • Dbq Palestinian Conflict

    924 Words  | 2 Pages

    Since the Arabs were living in Palestine when the Ottoman Empire control it. Since the Arabs defeated the Ottoman Empire with the help of from Germany, “Just short of 6 months the Palestinians were crushed, militarily and psychologically” (document 8) On the other hand, Israel grew beyond the partition lines, gained more defensible borders and they destroyed Arab homes reducing their population. The Palestinians rightly felt that the Israelis were taking over the area and were pushing out of lands promised to them in both the Balfour Declaration and the UN 1947 Partition.

    Read More

  • War and Peace In the Middle East by Avi Shlaim

    1239 Words  | 3 Pages

    According to Shlaim, the conflict begins during World War 1 when the British made various promises to both Jews and Arabs while simultaneously plotting with the French to divide all the territory into spheres of influence . The British assumed that Palestinians and Jews could leave peaceably in a single state, but Britain's obligation to the Jews could only be met at the expense of the Arab majority.  The British carved up the territories under their mandate without regard for religious, ethnic, or linguistic composition of their inhabitants.

    Read More

  • HAMAS: A Conventional Terrorist Group?

    1483 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Nation of Israel was founded out of the eastern area of a British occupied (former Ottoman Empire) section of western Asia known as the “Mandate of Palestine”. There was an attempt in November of 1947 by the United Nations (UN) to partition the region into Arab and Israeli states with the Holy City Jerusalem as an international city. (United Nations, 1949) The Jews accepted this proposal while the Arab League and other groups did not. (Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2006). What followed was an Arab strike that became violent and sent the Jews on the defensive. They rebounded and brought the civil war to an end, expelling over 250,000 Arabs. The day before the British mandate was set to expire; the region was invaded by four Arab States starting the yearlong 1948 Arab–Israeli War. Ultimately a cease fire and truce was reached with the establishment of bo...

    Read More

  • The Arab-Israeli Conflict: Annotated Bibliography

    1067 Words  | 3 Pages

    On November 29, 1947, the United Nations voted for a partition resolution that led to the establishment of the nation of Israel in May, 1948. This was great news for Jews in Palestine and the diaspora as it meant the fulfillment of the quest for the rebirth of their nation in their previous homeland after many years of wandering (Pappe, 2006, p. 12). However, their Palestinian Arab counterparts opposed to the establishment from the start felt cheated by the international community and remained categorical that the final answer to the Jewish problem would only be solved in blood and fire (Karsh, 2002, p. 8).

    Read More

  • The Israel-Palestinian Conflict And The Israeli-Palestine Conflict

    737 Words  | 2 Pages

    The time that Palestine was being controlled by the British, they were full of empty promises. In November of 1917, the Balfour Declaration was the start of those half-hearted promises. The Declaration called for Palestine to be the Jewish homeland. This seemed to be a lofty declaration by the Brits since Palestine was still technically Ottoman. As a result, revolts started to erupted between both the Palestinians and the Zionists. The British was able to quell the revolts, nonetheless they felt it as if this was becoming too much of a chore to rule over the Palestinians, so passed the issue over to the United Nations, which came up with the UN Partition Plan in 1947. This plan called for both Israel and Palestine to each take ownership of land whose masses would amount to be of equal size. However, the borders posed a major problem as the landscape of the borders created somewhat of a confusing puzzle. This resolution did not last long as the tensions boiled over to what became known as the Arab-Israel War. Shortly after the Israelis won an armistice was signed giving Israel a third more land than what was given in the United Nations Partition. Years later, the Israelis and other Arabs went to war which later became the Six-Day War. After the Israeli victory, they obtained

    Read More

  • Civil Disobedience

    577 Words  | 2 Pages

    Under British rule in India, the British were harshly oppressive and only interested in exploiting products from India for their own use, causing many Indians to become extremely poor. They became so oppressed they were on the verge of violent civil disobedience, when Gandhi appeared to negotiate with the British threw non-violent tactics such as sit-ins and hunger strikes. The people were supportive on Gandhi and were set to become violent if anything happened to him. Things were resolved without violence.

    Read More

  • Essay On African Americans After Ww2

    1400 Words  | 3 Pages

    After WW2 Britten had been considerably weaken because of World War 2. The fighting also took an exhausting tool on them and on the military and financial recourses. They were so exhausted from the war that they did not resist much when a global independence move swept through the countries they colonized. While the colonized people had a new desire to fight for their independence the Europeans were to war-weary and had little desire to fight back. For years now India had been demanding self-rule from Britten, but as their wish drew closer so did the tension between the Muslim minorities in a land who’s majority was Hindu. Most of the leaders in India were Hindu and they wanted to involve both Muslims and Hindus into the Congress Party. But

    Read More

  • Conflict between Hindus and Muslims

    1310 Words  | 3 Pages

    The most threatening conflict between Hindus and Muslims is the province of Kashmir. This is where the decision to divide India into India and Pakistan seems to have been a terrible mistake. Kashmir, which is the only Muslim majority city in India, lies between the divided India and Pakistan. After India’s independence in the 1940’s, Kashmir had to choose to either unite with India or Pakistan. The Prince of Kashmir chose India but Pakistan invaded the province soon after and have occupied part of Kashmir since then. Controversy still surrounds the province today because naturally, Muslims want to control it. While many Muslims relocated to Pakistan and the Hindus to India, half of the Muslim population was left in India and their relations did not improve after being partially separated.

    Read More

  • Causes Of The American Revolution

    553 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Partition of India was one of the greatest events that has ever took place in South

    Read More

  • Indian Nationalism and Indian Independence

    3241 Words  | 7 Pages

    There is a distinct difference between popular Indian nationalism, that is the nation believing in a state independent of Britain, and Indian nationalist movements, for example the Muslim League or the Hindu revivalist movement. These movements fought for independence but were far more religiously orientated and were fighting in their own interests. Although Indian nationalism initially found expression in the Mutiny of 1857, its deve...

    Read More

  • The Sepoy Mutiny

    459 Words  | 1 Pages

    By the year 1857 the British had established complete political control of India. As Western education was introduced and missionaries eroded Hindu society resentment among Indian people grew and it was joined by unease among the old governing class when the British decided to formally abolish the Mughal Empire.

    Read More

  • The Past, Present, and Future of India

    3802 Words  | 8 Pages

    of Bengal. This gave the foreigners effective control of administration. The Marathas, the Sikhs and ...

    Read More

  • Afghanistan National Reconciliation and Peace Process

    1872 Words  | 4 Pages

    There are other protracted conflicts which have also gone through different stages and seen several regimes changes. However, hardly any conflict has such a complicated history as the Afghan one. Beginning of this conflict traced back to the late 1970s when Kabul witnessed a fierce power struggle between four ideological schools such as conservative members of the royalist elite...

    Read More

  • Colonialism in India

    997 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...tween the Hindus and Muslims, Jinnah felt that Muslims had no future in India (Overfield 216). With the end of British rule in 1947, not only did India gain its independence but also along with it was born an other country, Pakistan where Jinnah served as the first governor (Overfield 216). With the gain of India’s independence, Gandhi was shot the following year in 1948 by a Hindu zealot who resented his commitment to Hindu – Muslim harmony (Overfield 212).

    Read More

More about Partition Literature of India

Open Document