|
1947—retold Prashant Sharma ,ECE IIIrd year Every year the spirit of freedom engulfs our souls on 15th August.It also leaves an inexplicable void with a multitude of "What ifs" and "Hows".Recurrent questions regarding the partition the result have created a bellicose environ of abhorrence.Why the partition had to happen is a question that has remained an enigma to the greatest of historians. Was it concept developed by Veer Savarkar and picked up by Jinnah in its embryonic stage? Or was it pioneered by Jinnah who thought it would act as an elixir and solve the Hindu Muslim repugnance? The fact that Jinnah had asked Pt.Nehru to take care of his villa in Malabar Hill, Mumbai, shows that neither he, nor anyone, had foreseen the after affects of the dichotomy of the subcontinent. He had planned to take care of Pakistani administration over the week and wanted to spend the weekend in Mumbai. There was in fact, no talk of a visa or passport to cross the border in the initial stages. Jinnah had even proclaimed that he was the governer general of Muslims, but wanted to be the protecter general of Hindus. Not even an erudite, who is considered to be amongst the three greatest embracers of Islam, could predict the plethora of abhorrence that was to follow. Trains were burnt, women were raped and we all know of the atrocities which the people of the once same nation, committed on each other. 1947 signified the victory of freedom, but the loss of civilisation. At that time, hate had become respectful. Partition, which was thought to be ambrosia for the nation, turned out to be the forbidden apple. The role of Mohammad Ali Jinnah needs to be assessed without bias. According to many scholars, Jinnah initially did not want the formation of a new country. He, in fact, wanted to protect the rights of his minority community constitutionally and on not seeing this happen, he had to resort to partition. Jinnah was neither a villain or a hero, he was a product of his time and the politics around him forced him to opt for Pakistan. Jinnah was all for secularism and in his first speech in ‘Pakistan’ he actually proclaimed it to be a secular state and imagined that all the different religions and sects would ultimately amalgate into one unified country.Jinnah was quite fond of Gandhi and Nehru and shared a lot of similarities with the former. Both were born in Gujarat at around the same time and had the same profession. Both were killed in the same year by fanatics from their own community and both were secular, this trait of Jinnah unknown to most. Veer Savarkar, on the other hand, had a fetish for his community, the type of inclination thet leads to destruction. He had borrowed his ideas from the likes of Mazzini and said that Hindus and Muslims were two nations and openly supported the two nation theory. The partition was not a result of conflict of religions and neither was it planned in the political offices of London and Delhi, it was the result of the insatiability of leaders for power, but on the whole, ambiguity still surrounds the need for division. One true statesman in all this turmoil was Ambedkar. He highlighted that the torch bearers of the two nation theory were ignoring the forces that united them together. He inisted on uniting Hindus and Muslims and not dividing them. He also wanted to protect his community constitutuinally, but wanted to do that within a legal framework and not by creation of borders. Post partition, there were three times as many Muslims left in India as there were in Pakistan and as a result the Pakistani leaders feared the complete annhilition of the Muslims in India.The period of 1947 also brings up ceretain heroes, like Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, of the North West Frontier Province, who continued on the Gandhian ideals of peace and started a non violent movement for his people and was subsequently jailed for a decade.But it also brings up certain opputunists who saw this period as a time to spread their influence like M.S.Gowalkar, an RSS activist, who tried to strengthen the RSS hold over Delhi at that time.This period also leaves many unanswered questions as why did Gurdaspur go to India while Chittagong went to Pakistan. It had taken eons for the subcontinent to become what it had in 1600A.D., and the advent of the East India company marked the beginning of the long fall, the thud of which was heard during partition.With the completion of the fall, along came a dream. A dream of a free ,united and a truly great India.The road to success has most certainly been slow, with the tensions with neighbouring countries and the almost ever lasting Hindu Muslim problems.However, education has steadily started acting as an iconoclast and liberating the minds of the narrow ideals . The opinions expressed are the the author's own and may or may not be indicative of the publication's stand on the issue. |
