Partition Studies Blog Explores Impact on West Bengal Muslims

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SUNDAY, AUGUST 2 3 , 2 009
The Partition and the Muslim Minorities of West Bengal,
1947-1967
Introduction
The studies on the aftermath of Bengal Partition rarely focus on the
Muslim Minorities of West Bengal. Even recent scholarship on the
Bengal Muslims primarily deals with the condition of the Muslims in
pre- Partition Bengal and then concentrates on East Bengal/East
Pakistan after partition, which is now called Bangladesh. Quite
surprisingly, these studies do not cover the Muslims of West Bengals
after Partition. The Muslims of West Bengal were marginalised not
only in the socio-economic and cultural milieu of post-
Independence/Partition West Bengal but also in the academic
research. The condition of the Muslims of West Bengal after Partition
has not received due attention in academic circle with a very few
exceptions. What actually happened to the Muslims of West Bengal
after partition? What did Partition mean to them? How did it affect
their lives and the mode of thinking? What was their survival strategy
in the face of the crucial post Partition situation? All these questions
are still awaiting answer. The progressive backwardness of the
Muslims of West Bengal identified recently in the Sachhar Committee
Report might have some roots in the Partition of the province. The
present paper is an attempt to audit the impact of the Partition on the
Muslims of West Bengal.
Muslims in Pre-Partition Bengal: Social Origin and
Differentiation
Rafiuddin Ahmed, Asim Roy, Richard M. Eaton, Tazeen M.Murshid
and a number of scholars contributed largely towards our
understanding of the Muslims of Bengal in pre-Partition period. Islam
reached Bengal in the thirteenth century after it had become a part of
the Turkish Sultanate and grown rapidly with time. It was a very
interesting and complex process. Towards the end of the nineteenth
century, the British government became aware of the huge
concentration of Muslim population in the rural areas of eastern part
of Bengal. The Muslims outnumbered the Hindus by the end of the
century. The Census of 187 2 surprised the British officials regarding
the presence of a huge Muslim population in the eastern part of
Bengal and prompted them to investigate the phenomenon seriously.
Several theories sprang up to explain the growth of Islam in Bengal.
Richard Eaton has categorized them into four viz. immigration
theories, religion of the sword thesis, religion of patronage theory
and religion of social liberation thesis.
According to the immigration theory, the bulk of Indias Muslims
descended from other Muslims who had either migrated overland
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Partition Studies
from the Iranian plateau or sailed across the Arabian Sea. This
process undoubtedly contributed to the Islamization of those areas of
South Asia that are geographically contiguous with the Iranian
Plateau or the Arabian Sea. However, this argument cannot explain
the mass Islamization in Bengal.
The religion of the sword thesis, on the other hand, stresses the role
of military force in the diffusion of Islam in India and elsewhere.
Dating at least from the time of the Crusades, this idea received big
boosts during the nineteenth century, the high tide of European
imperial domination over Muslim peoples, and subsequently in the
context of the worldwide Islamic reform movements of the late
twentieth century. However, it is very difficult to explain the rise and
spread of Islam in India by means of force. If Islamization had ever
been a function of military or political force, one would expect that
those areas exposed most intensively and over the longest period to
rule by Muslim dynasties would today contain the greatest number of
Muslims. Yet the opposite is the case, as those regions where the
most dramatic Islamization occurred, such as eastern Bengal or
western Punjab, lay on the fringes of Indo-Muslim rule, where the
sword was weakest, and where brute force could have exerted the
least influence. In such regions, the first accurate census reports put
the Muslim population at between 7 0 and 90 percent of the total,
whereas in the heartland of Muslim rule in the upper Gangetic Plain
the Muslim population ranged from only 10 to 15 percent. In other
words, in the subcontinent as a whole there is an inverse relationship
between the degree of Muslim political penetration and the degree of
Islamization. Even within Bengal, this principle holds true. Except
Dacca, none of the eastern districts of Bengal contains any famous
headquarter of Muslim rulers. Dacca was the residence of the Nawab
for about a hundred years, but it contains a smaller proportion of
Muslims than the surrounding districts, except Faridpur. Malda and
Murshidabad were the old capitals of Muslim rule for nearly four and
a half centuries. Yet the Muslims form a smaller proportion of the
population than they do in the adjacent districts of Dinajpur,
Rajshahi, and Nadia.
The religion of patronage theory can partly explain the growth of
Islam in some urban areas but cannot explain the process of mass
Islamization in the rural areas of Bengal. Many instances in Indian
history would appear to support this theory. In the early fourteenth
century, Ibn Battuta reported that Indians presented themselves as
new converts to the Khalaji sultans, who in turn rewarded them with
robes of honour according to their rank. Political patronage, like the
influence of the sword, would have decreased rather than increased
as one moved away from the centres of that patronage. What we need
is some theory that can explain the phenomenon of mass Islamization
on the periphery of Muslim power and not just in the heartland, and
among millions of peasant cultivators and not just among urban
elites.
The religion of social liberation thesis was popularized by the British
ethnographers and historians and widely accepted as an explanation
of Islamization in the subcontinent. According to this theory, the
oppressive and tyrannical Hindu caste system alienated the lower
order. The latter felt attracted by the notion of social equality
propagated by Islam and converted to Islam on a mass scale. It is too
idealized an explanation of mass Islamization in Bengal. It goes
against the religious geography of the subcontinent. In 187 2, when
the earliest reliable census was taken, the highest concentrations of
Muslims were found in eastern Bengal, western Punjab, the Northwest
Frontier region and Baluchistan. These areas are situated at the
periphery, not in the core of Hindu heartland as well as far from the
centre of Muslim political power. Here the control of the Hindu and
Buddhist social system was very weak. In Bengal, Muslim converts
were drawn manly from Rajbansi, Pod, Chandal, Kuch and other
indigenous groups that had been only lightly exposed to Brahmanical
culture, and in Punjab the same was true of various Jat clans that
eventually formed the bulk of the Muslim community.
Richard M. Eaton has argued that a slower process of conversion
occurred as the geographical, agricultural and political frontiers of
Bengal moved eastwards. The cultural accommodation was such that
local people were not even aware of the process. Islam in Bengal
absorbed so much local culture and became so profoundly identified
with Bengals long-term process of agrarian expansion, that in its
formative years the cultivating classes never seem to have regarded
it as foreign.
Social Divisions among the Muslims of Bengal
The Muslim society in Bengal may be divided into three categories,
the Ashraf or Sharif, the Ajlaf or Atrap/ Atraf and the Arzal. The
Ashraf or Sharif meant noble or person of high extraction. They were
in fact landholders and North Indian traders. They constituted the
upper class in the Muslim society of Bengal. This group included the
Syed, Sheikh, Pathan, Mungal, Mallik and Mirza. They were
descendents of foreigners and converts from upper Hindu castes.
The second category comprises the Ajlaf or as more commonly
known in Bengal, the Atrap/Atraf or lower class Muslims. All
converts from the lower castes of Hindus belonged to this category.
The third category, Arzul, was at the lowest strata of the Muslim
society in Bengal. They were degraded Muslims. They lived under
social disabilities. The upper two categories of Muslims did not
involve in any social interaction with them.
The Muslim society suffered from caste distinctions too. The Census
Report of 1911 referred to 80 castes in the Muslim society. Inter-
marriage between the upper and lower castes existed. Social mobility
was comparatively higher than in the Hindu society. The upward
mobility was possible through change in occupation and
accumulation of wealth, as evidenced by the popular saying, last
year I was a jolaha, this year I am a Sheiks, next year if prices (jute)
rise I shall be a Syed,
With the beginning of the twentieth century, enduring changes began
to take place in the Muslim society of Bengal. The most important was
the emergence of a middle-class Muslim intelligentsia. Their presence
was felt in the field of education, employment, culture as well as in
politics. They came to the position to contest with their Hindu
counterparts. The Muslim population also grew steadily in Bengal.
They outnumbered the Hindus by the end of the nineteenth century
and formed 54.43% of the total population of Bengal in 1931. It
remained almost same in 1941(54.29%). They formed the majority in
the province. The Muslim population grew faster than the Hindus did
and the steady growth of population provided the Muslims a new
sense of confidence. It indirectly affected Hindu-Muslim relations as
Muslims began to fight for proportional representation and gave the
community some political advantage in bargaining for privileges like
reserved seats and quotas particularly from the beginning of the
twentieth century. The successive Government of India Acts
strengthened the position of the Muslims in electoral politics. The
Muslim League was in power during the last ten years of the
undivided Bengal. Naturally, the Muslim League was not very much
in favour of partitioning the province where they had a clear
majority. Thus, a section of the Muslim League leadership headed by
Suhrawardy and Abul Hasim joined their hands with Satat Chandra
Bose, Kiran Shankar Ray and others to prevent the partition of Bengal
and to make Bengal a sovereign state. It is interesting that both
Suhrawardy and Abul Hasim belonged to the western part of Bengal.
The former was from Medinipur and the later was from Burdwan.
However, the United Bengal Plan failed miserably. On 20 June 1947 ,
the Partition Plan was adopted in the Bengal Legislative Assembly.
The Muslims of Bengal, who had long been enjoying the status of
majority in the province, became minority in the newly created state
of West Bengal carved out of Partition.
Partition, Communal Riots and the Displacement of the
Muslims of West Bengal
The Kolkata killing and the mounting communal tension in West
Bengal just before and after the Independence and Partition displaced
a large number of Muslims of West Bengal. The then West Bengal
Government failed to protect the life and property of the Muslims
living in the state, which is evident from the repeated attacks on the
Muslims in West Bengal. Those were not communal riots as such, but
one-sided attacks on the already enfeebled Muslims of the state.
These attacks uprooted a large number of Muslims and forced them to
leave West Bengal in an overwhelming atmosphere of fear.
Out Migration of the Muslims from West Bengal
After the Partition, many Muslim families from the western parts of
Bengal migrated to the eastern parts of the newly drawn border
primarily for security. However, not all of them were riot victims.
Some were government servants who opted for Pakistan. Some of
them decided to migrate in search for better employment. Some
moved purely by ideological consideration. There is a fairly large and
varied literature on refugees who came into Eastern India, but there
is an almost complete absence of writings on the large reverse flow of
refugees from West Bengal to East Pakistan. The out-migration of the
Bengali Muslims from West Bengal has not received much attention in
the Indian historiography of Partition, though it is an inseparable
part of the larger story of Partition migration in the east. Awareness
of this lacuna has been reflected only very recently in a handful of
studies on the migration of the Muslims from West Bengal to East
Pakistan.
The first wave of out migration started with the Kolkata killings. It
took the form of an exodus towards East Bengal after the massacre of
thirty thousand Muslims in Bihar at the end of 1946. Just after the
Partition, a large number of Muslims migrated to Pakistan, mostly to
East Pakistan. The Muslims did not feel secure in Kolkata. Muslim
artisans and the businessmen as well as the intellectuals started
migrating to safer places. Md. Kudrat-I Khuda, a popular professor of
Presidency College, decided to leave Kolkata as his residence at
Bhabanipur had been attacked during the Kolkata riot. His personal
laboratory was also destroyed. Prominent literary figures like, Syed
Waliullah, Shidullah Kaysar, leading artist Zainul Abedin and a
number of prominent people belonging to the Muslim community left
Kolkata. A large section of the Muslim middle class and the artisans
left Kolkata. Even most of the Muslim bastee dwellers left the city due
to recurrent attacks on them. Consequently, according to one
estimate, the Muslim population of Kolkata dropped considerably,
from 23% in 1946-47 to 12% in 1951.
The second wave of migration started with the outbreak of a series of
riots in different parts of West Bengal in 1950. The most devastating
riot took place in Howrah. Muslim workers in the jute mills of Howrah
were attacked in the last week of March 1950. Nearly one hundred
Muslims were murdered brutally. Ashok Mitra (ICS and the Census
Commissioner of 1951) has recounted his experience in suppressing
the riot in his memoir. A Large number of horrified Muslims left
Howrah for safety. Sporadic incidents of attack on the Muslims could
be found even at Burdwan town, a town comparatively free from
communal disturbances. The Hindu rioters attacked and set fire to
the house of Abul Hasim, the prominent Muslim League leader who
actively campaigned for the United Bengal Plan along with Sarat
Chandra Bose. He decided to stay in West Bengal after the Partition
while other prominent League leaders left. However, he was so
shocked by the incident of arson that he along with his family
members migrated to East Pakistan. A large number of his relatives
followed him. In an interview, his son Badruddin Umar confessed that
the migration of their relatives could be avoided if his father had not
migrated. . Large-scale population movement across the border also
took place in Nadia, which assumed the shape of almost an exchange
of population. This time it was truly a two-way traffic. The
namasudras were driven out of East Bengal and in turn, Between
100000 and 200000 Muslims from the bordering villages of Nadia
were driven out of West Bengal. About 131000 Muslims had left
Kolkata alone on the eve of the 1951 Census. Forced by the
circumstances a section of the Muslim businessmen decided to leave
Kolkata by exchanging their property privately with their Hindu
counterparts coming from eastern parts of the border. The
contemporary newspapers contain a large number of advertisements
for property exchange. One such advertisement was published in
Anandabazar Patrika on 6 April 1950 may be cited here. A Muslim
businessman named Nuruddin Ahmed of 1-E, Anjuman Road, Kolkata
sought to exchange or sale his running automobile business situated
on one of the main roads of the city with an income of minimum 2/3
thousand per month along with attached garage and residential house
with similar business in any towns of East Pakistan immediately.
According to the government Report of 1950-51, 7 lakhs Muslims
had left West Bengal, of which 5 lakhs later returned.
The third wave of Muslim migration to East Pakistan took place in
1964 following anti-Muslim riots in Kolkata and other parts of West
Bengal. The Hazaratbal incident in Kashmir sparked off communal
riots in Khulna. From Khulna riots spread like wildfire to other parts
of East Pakistan. Hindus were attacked in Jessore, Dhaka,
Narayangunj, Faridpur, Comilla, Noakhali, Chandpur and Chittagong.
The attacks on the Hindu minorities in East Pakistan resulted in a
fresh wave of migration of the Hindu Bengalis towards West Bengal.
The communal situation deteriorated in West Bengal, which resulted
in the outbreak of communal riots on 10 January in Kolkata and in
some adjoining areas like Chakda, Tehatta in Nadia, and Barasat in 24
Parganas. These areas had a huge refugee population. Muslims were
attacked in Beliaghata, Entally, Baniapukur, Taltola, Karaya and
Amherst Street. Suburban areas like Habra, Nayapara in Barasat,
Haltu, and Tiljala in Jadavpur witnessed large scale looting and arson.
Violence gripped Maheshtala in Metiaburuj. There were incidents of
stabbing in Howrah, Serampore and in different railway stations in
Sealdah section. The Kolkata riots lasted until 15 January. Many
Muslim bustees were set on fire. The riot of 1964 forcibly uprooted a
large number of Muslims and pushed them out of West Bengal.
Around 8 lakhs Indian Muslims left for East Bengal. Most of these
migrants were from West Bengal or the northeast.
Along with those people evicted by violent communal attacks, a
section of Muslims decided to migrate to East Pakistan quite willingly.
However, the question of the security of life, property and self-
esteem might have played a crucial role in the background of their
decision. One such section was the Government employees who, in
the previous month, had opted for Pakistan. Certain categories of
Government employees were given the choice to opt for either
Pakistan or India. Most of the Muslim officials decided to serve
Pakistan. All but one of the nineteen Muslim Civil Service officers in
Bengal opted to join the Government of Pakistan. A large number of
Government employees of subordinate ranks followed them. They
joined the nascent bureaucracy of Pakistan within days of Partition.
The decision for opting to serve Pakistan was not always voluntary.
Sometimes they were persuaded by their Hindu colleagues to quit
West Bengal and go to Pakistan. Moreover, as the future boundary of
the two succeeding States was uncertain, they were confused a lot at
the time giving option. Many thought that it was a temporary thing
and that one day the two countries would be one again. A large
number of Muslim Government employees of the Muslim majority
districts of Murshidabad, Malda and Nadia thought that these
districts would naturally go to Pakistan. They opted for Pakistan to
stay at home. However, their dream was shattered as these districts
were awarded to India quite unexpectedly. They were subsequently
replaced by the Indian optees from other side of the border.
However, not all the Muslims followed the same strategy. In Malda,
which was under the administration of Pakistan until 17 August, very
few Muslim Government employees opted for Pakistan as observed
by Ashok Mitra, ICS, during his tenure as the first District Magistrate
of Malda. The optees usually maintained a close contact with their
relatives and friends staying at the other side of the border. They
used to settle in close to their previous place of residence. Many
displaced employees from Murshidabad settled down in Rajshahi
because of its proximity to Murshidabad.
Another group of people mostly derived from the educated middle
class decided to migrate to East Bengal for ideological commitment as
well as better career prospect. Abu Rushad in his novel Nongor
(Anchor) has portrayed the experience of Kamal, an income tax
officer, who migrated to Dhaka just after Partition leaving behind his
parents, other family members and a host of friends in India. Kamal
decided in favour of migration primarily due to his ideological
commitment to the idea of Pakistan. To him Pakistan was
synonymous with a new home and a new identity for which Muslims
of British India had fought. He found that Kolkata, the city where he
was born and brought up, had suddenly become hostile. It became an
insecure place for the Muslims to live in. He argued that Muslims
were no more on equal footing with the Hindus. However, he failed to
convince his own family members. His brother, Rahim found no
reason to leave for Pakistan. Like many of his contemporary
migrants, he tried to get settled in a new alien land. As the title of the
noble Nongor(Anchor) suggests Kamal wanted to have a new mooring
and get anchored in a new place. However, the process was not very
smooth as he had expected. In less than one year of the creation of
Pakistan he, like many other Bengali Muslims, was caught in a
dilemma when the ideologues of Pakistan had been trying to create a
cultural homogeneity ignoring the linguistic and cultural diversity of
the people of Pakistan. The forceful imposition of Urdu by the
Pakistani Government created a severe resentment among the
Bengali Muslims. They were not prepared to sacrifice their linguistic
and cultural identity at the cost of Pakistani nationalism. Kamal
wanted Pakistan and he got. It separated him from his family. Yet he
had no regret for his decision to opt for Pakistan. He tried to strike his
roots in Pakistan. However, he was not prepared to discard his past,
nor did he want to separate himself from the greater bond of history.
On the other hand, some Muslims migrated for better career
prospect. One such case was the migration of the family members of
Anisuzzaman, later a renowned scholar based at the University of
Dhaka :
"I was born in Kolkata. We lived at Park Circus. Here I participated in
the procession of Rashid Ali Day boycotting the class. Here I
witnessed the riot of 1946. Our non-Bengali milkman and an unknown
young man were murdered in front of our eyes. The elders failed to
save the milkman. Our Hindu neighbours including actor Chhabi
Biswas left the para (locality) with the help of the police to safer
places. Many of our relatives similarly came to our locality leaving
their residence in Hindu dominated areas"
All of our family members were energetic supporters of Pakistan
movement. However, they became depressed after knowing that
Bengal was also being partitioned along with the partition of India.
They blamed the Hindus for the partition of Bengal. As our ancestral
home 24-Parganas was included in India, they blamed the Muslim
League for not presenting our case properly in the Boundary
Commission. My father was then at 50. He spent most part of his life
in Kolkata. He was not willing to go to Dhaka from his heart leaving his
own city. Moreover, living in the other side of the Padma was a
nightmare to him. However, my mother repeatedly said that if there
was any future for our two sons, it was in Pakistan. Ultimately, in
October 1947 , when I had been studying in class seven, we migrated
to Khulna closing our establishments in Kolkata as Khulna was closer
to Kolkata and some of our relatives were there. And if Pakistan could
not stand out, it would be easier to return to Kolkata. My two uncles
never thought of migrating to East Pakistan leaving the village.In
December 1948, we sifted to Dhaka and permanently settled there. In
1950, communal riots broke out in both sides of the border. It
became clear that the partition failed to solve the communal
problem
This section of people were larger in number than the optee
Government employees. The Muslims of West Bengal were, in general,
backward in the field of education than the Hindu middle class. Thus,
after Partition it became very tough to the Muslim middle class to
find respectable jobs, which had already become scarce in the state.
The coming of the East Bengali refugees made the situation worse.
Because the early migrants from East Pakistan mostly belonged to
educated middle class and on the whole they were far more advanced
in educational standard not only from the Muslim middle class but
also from the host Hindu middle class. The job market of West Bengal
became very competitive. Thus, the migration of a large section of
educated Muslim middle class was a bare survival strategy on their
part. The flight of the educated Hindus from East Bengal created a
great vacuum in the field of education and other professional jobs.
Thus, there was a great demand for the educated people there to fill
up the teaching, administrative and other professional jobs. Partition
had provided them with new career opportunities that were beyond
their imagination. The labour market for university graduates was
much better in East Pakistan at that time. During the fifties and sixties
people with very poor education held rather important posts in East
Bengal largely due to the migration of Hindu middle classes, which
were often filled by less qualified Muslims. The migration of the
educated Muslim middle class created a vacuum in the social,
cultural and political leadership. It was a great loss not only to the
Muslims of the state but also West Bengal as a whole.
Along with them, there migrated almost all the top-level Muslim
League politicians. Some of them once actively campaigned in favour
of Pakistan and so it was embarrassing to them to stay on in West
Bengal after partition. However, not all of them belonged to this
category. Obviously, some people like Suhrawardy and Abul Hasim
within the Bengal Provincial Muslim League actively campaigned
against the partition of Bengal. However, most of the Bengal
Provincial Muslim League leaders left West Bengal immediately after
the partition or within a few years after the incident. Fazlul Huq, the
former premier of Bengal devoted his energy to oppose the two
nation theory and to prevent the Muslim League from the Pakistan
Demand. The bitterness between Huq and the Muslim League became
extreme and Huq continuously opposed the League. As a result, he
got increasingly isolated from the mainstream of Bengal politics.
Politically, he became practically a loner though his personal
popularity remained very high. As communal riots broke out in
Kolkata on 16 August 1946, Huq worked hard to restore communal
harmony and to protect his Hindu neighbours in Park Circus, Kolkata
. Being requested by the League leaders, Huq joined the Muslim
League in September 1946. After partition, he also settled in Dhaka
and served as the Advocate General of East Pakistan from 1947 to
1952. He was soon involved in East Pakistan politics after the
elections of 1954 and became the chief minister of East Bengal. H.S.
Suhrawardy did not migrate immediately. He had been effectively
cornered in the internal politics of the Bengal Provincial Muslim
League on the eve of partition and was apprehensive about his future
political career in East Pakistan. He was also anxious about the fate of
the Muslims in West Bengal. He stayed back in Kolkata engaging
himself in a peace mission along with Gandhiji. Later he had moved to
West Pakistan and joined Mohammad Ali's 'Cabinet of Talents' in 1954
as Law Minister and consequently replaced Chaudhry Muhammad Ali
as Prime Minister on September 12, 1956. Abul Hasim, another
prominent figure in Bengal politics, also decided to stay on in West
Bengal. However, he had to migrate to East Pakistan on 1950. Notable
journalist, lawyer and political activist Abul Mansur Ahmed was
hesitant to leave. He faced humiliating comments from his colleagues
of Alipur Court where had been practicing since long before.
Ultimately, he also decided to move and took active part in the
politics of East Pakistan. Hamidul Haque Chowdhury also migrated to
Dhaka and joined the Dhaka High Court Bar and became a member of
the provincial cabinet in charge of the Ministry of Finance and then of
Ministry of Land Revenue.
The migration of the creamy layer of the Muslim political leadership
to East Pakistan undoubtedly benefited the recipient country. Within
a few years they led a remarkable movement for the recognition of
their own language which ultimately paved the way for the outburst
of the Bengali nationalism in the early 197 0s. On the other hand, the
migration of the top order Muslim leadership created a serious
vacuum in the politics of West Bengal. The Muslims who stayed on in
West Bengal became leaderless in a situation where eligible leadership
was the urgent cry of the time to protect the interest of the Muslim
minorities in the state.
Those who migrated to East Bengal, whatever may be the driving
force behind their migration, had to struggle hard to strike their roots
there. Some people failed to do so even after long stay. They
remained nostalgic about their lost home in West Bengal. In an
interview, Badruddin Umar has expressed his nostalgia about his lost
home in West Bengal:
"I have not been able to strike roots in this country (Bangladesh)..I
do political work here, I would certainly remain here as long as I can,
but I have this feeling that I do not belong to this place.Whenever I
come here (West Bengal), I have a special fill.. a certain sense of home
coming. My father (Abul Hasim) also suffered tremendously at the
end of his life. He used to say, I shall return, I shall not stay here
anymore.and like that."
The nostalgia for the lost home and a sense of rootlessness of the
migrated Muslims has nicely been reflected in Dibyendu Palits short
story Alamer Nijer Bari(Alams Own House). Alam was born and
brought up in Kolkata. After partition, Alams family moved to Dacca
after exchanging their house at Park Circus with that of a Hindu
Bengali family from Dacca. Three years later, he came to Kolkata to
attend a seminar. On his way to Kolkata, one of his associates asked
Alam, Kolkata is familiar to you, isnt it? Alam replied, It is the land
of my birth. With these words, he could submerge himself in his own
identity as it were. Was the land of ones birth also ones native land?
This question often made him feel homeless. Shikar (The Root),
another short story written by Prafulla Roy may be mentioned in this
connection. The story demonstrates the strength of mans bond with
his ancestral home. Rajmohan came to West Bengal within a month of
partition. He exchanged his ancestral house in Dacca with that of
Abdul Karim at Park Circus in Kolkata. One morning, the old
gentleman, Rajmohan becomes extremely nostalgic about his
ancestral home in Dacca. He feels that even after forty years of stay at
Park Circus his primary root is still in his ancestral residence of
Dacca. However, a secondary root of his existence is gradually being
developing in his Park Circus residence. That afternoon, quite
unexpectedly, Abdul Karim, the man with whom he had exchanged
his property, came to meet him along with his granddaughter and
grandson. His main intension was to revisit his ancestral house where
they had lived for generations. It is that house, where his roots
rested. He asked Rajmohan to revisit his house too as early as
possible: If you are late, you might not see your ancestral house.
Rajmohan was also eager to step into his ancestral house at least once
again before his death. The attraction of the roots brought the two old
men closer to each other breaking down the barrier of community
identity and national border.
The number of Muslims migrated from West Bengal to East Bengal was
not numerically much significant as compared to the migration of the
Hindus from East Bengal. However, the actual significance of this
population movement lies in the social, economic, political and
cultural arenas. Most of these migrants belonged to the educated
middle class professionals and some of them were prominent
personalities in undivided Bengal. Their departure left a vacuum in
the socio-cultural life of Bengali Muslims who stayed on in West
Bengal. Most of those who remained were the week and poor who had
no assets, no connections and little by way of skill to deploy in a new
life across the border. Few exceptions were obviously there. Many
people willingly chose to stay on in West Bengal because neither they
had any connection with the politics of Muslim League nor they had
any sympathy towards the demand for Pakistan. Some had
connections with the Congress; others had connections with the
Communist Party and most of them had no connection with politics
as such. In the crucial election of 1946, Abul Hasim contested from
Burdwan constituency. The other two candidates were the District
Congress Secretary, Abdus Sattar and Noor Newaz who represented
the Radical Democratic Party of M.N.Roy. Though Abul Hasim
secured a clear victory with a big margin, it is wrong to believe that
all the Muslims of his constituency supported the political
programme of Muslim League. Even being the secretary of the Bengal
Provincial Muslim League, Hasim had a left leaning and he had a
different stance of his own. Congress had a very good hold at
Burdwan. Moreover, Communist Party steadily expanded its support
base among the Muslims of Burdwan. Two of his nephews, Syed
Shahidullah and Mansur Habibullah, were important Communist
leaders in Bengal by the early 1940s. It is interesting that a good
number of the early stalwarts of the Communist Party came from the
Muslim community. Therefore, those who decided to stick to their
ancestral land had their own logic. Even those who actively
campaigned for Pakistan did not feel comfortable to leave their
ancestral land. Their position was equally awkward like that of the
Hindus of East Bengal who rallied behind the demand for partition
propagated by the Congress and the Hindu Mahashabha. After the
publication of the Radcliffe Award, they realised what damage they
had done to themselves. Hasan Azizul Huq who migrated from
Jabgram village of Bardhaman in West Bengal to Rajshihi, East
Pakistan and permanently settled there along with his parents recalls
that none of his uncles and cousins came to East Pakistan. some of
them were part of the struggle for Pakistan but it never entered
their heads that they might leave their homes to live in Pakistan. In
Abu Rushds novel Nongor (Anchor), Kamal did not find a single
supporter even among his own family members. His brother Rahim
found no reason to leave for Pakistan. Thus, he had to migrate alone.
Internal Displacement of the Muslims of West Bengal
It is interesting that after Partition the settlement pattern of the
Muslim communities changed largely. The Muslim families were
increasingly forced to settle in small exclusive pockets in the state.
During and after the Kolkata Riot, the horrified Muslim families of
Kolkata shifted themselves to safer zones, preferably to those places
where Muslims formed the majority. They largely flocked to Park
Circus, Rajabazar and other Muslim dominated areas of the city .
After Independence, deliberate attempts were made to wipe out the
Muslims from the city. Instigation primarily came from the Barabazar
based Hindu business community. The obvious motives were to
capture the shops and business establishments run by the Muslims.
Some other opportunists like the Hindu bustee owners used the
situation too. They wanted to evict the Muslim bustee dwellers and to
allot them to Hindu tenants at a much higher rent. The rioters
attacked the Muslim bustees very selectively. Muslims were evicted
from the bustees of Miyabagan at Beleghata, Motijhil at Entally,
Nikashipara at Shyamazar, Shahebbagan at Rajabajzar and several
other bustees of the city. It led to the progressive ghattoization of the
Muslims of Kolkata. It changed the urban morphology (the settlement
pattern) of the city. The Muslims of city began to live a ghettoized life.
However, the ghettoization of the Muslims of the city was not solely
due to partition. The majority Hindu community had definitely a
determining role in it. Since long before partition, they did not let the
Muslims to live in their neighbourhood due to the fear of pollution. It
was always difficult for the Muslims to manage a rented house or to
purchase a house in the so-called Hindu paras in Kolkata as well as
other parts of the state. The situation remains unchanged until today.
The partition made the gap between the two communities quite
unbridgeable. The partition riots created a barrier of deep distrust
between the two. Neither community allows the other to share its
space. Thus, both the communities prefer to reside in their own
neighbourhoods. This tendency is more prominent among the
Muslims as they belong to the minority community. Almost
everywhere in the world, the minorities prefer to live in their own
neighbourhood.
The horrible experience of the Kolkata Riot pushed a section of the
Muslims out of Kolkata and some of them migrated to the
countryside, which was comparatively free from communal tension.
Hasan Azizul Huq recalls, after 1947 the Muslims of that area (his
ancestral village Jabgram, Burdwan) did not experience any real
trouble. In an Assembly debate regarding the security of the Muslims
in West Bengal, Pramatha Nath Bandopadhay said that unlike the
cities, where the mutual trust had been lost, there was no dearth of
solidarity between the Hindus and Muslims in countryside. Because
of that, a section of the urban-based Muslims who had some ties with
the countryside migrated there for safety. In 1950, after the attack on
their house at Burdwan town, Abul Hashem temporally shifted his
family to his ancestral village, Kashemnagar. It was a common
survival strategy of the Muslims of West Bengal at that turbulent
period.
Muslims of West Bengal in Search for Security, Identity and
Equity
The Muslims of West Bengal had to face some crucial problems during
the post-Independence period. These were primarily to secure their
life and property, to fix up the issues relating their identity and to
establish themselves on the soil of West Bengal on equal terms with
the majority community.
Though the Indian state adopted a secular constitution, it is very
interesting that in the Indian Constitution the status of the minorities
was kept undefined. India is committed to secularism, which means it
must allow all religions in all spheres of life and it must protect the
minorities. However, the history of minority rights discourse in post-
Partition India shows how our nationalist leadership was inspired by
a vision of a homogenised cultural nationalism. By that time, the
unclean partition had cast its shadow over all constitutional thinking
on the minority question. The minorities, chiefly meaning Muslims
formed a ghetto. Their loyalty was suspect. The nation had to strike a
bargain with them. Minority protection was a deal. Secularism was
the political face of that deal. The nation was thus forever a half-
nation, destined to remain an entity perched precariously on an
uncertain concept of secularism that would allow pogrom, army
brutalities, and strategic isolation of communities on the margins (of
the core) of the nation. Secularism would mean, in short, building a
nationalist core and protecting the minorities consequent to that. If
secularism began as a moral politics, it soon became a strategy. Thus,
the post-Partition Indian State, though committed to the cause of
secularism, was not sincere enough to the cause of minority
protection. The recurrent attacks on the minorities and the failure of
the Government to protect the lives and properties of the minorities
clearly indicate so. Anwar Pasha in his novel Neer Sandhanee has
portrayed the post-Partition experience of the Muslims of West
Bengal. Hasan a Bengali Muslim student migrated to East Bengal just
after Partition. After a brief stay there, he came back to West Bengal.
He was neither enthusiastic about Pakistan nor prepared to accept
Pakistan as his homeland. He rather preferred to stay back in India as
India has declared herself as a secular country. Moreover, his
conscience did not permit him to leave behind fellow Muslims in an
uncertain and helpless condition. His friends failed to convince him
that it would not be possible for Muslims to live with the Hindus in
India. Mutual mistrust and hatred between the two communities
mounted day by day. Even students were not free from communal
prejudices of the time. Some Hindu students even refused to share the
dormitory with the Muslim students. When a large number of
Muslims from West Bengal were migrating to East Pakistan, Hasan was
not thinking so. He preferred to stay in India as India was committed
to secularism. However, a large number of Muslims who stayed on in
West Bengal were not fully convinced with the so-called ideals of
secularism. In practice, it was violated very frequently. Thus, Qadir
and Malik in the novel opposed Hasan vehemently in the question of
secular nature of Indian State. Malik called it Dar-ul-Harb (Land of
Enemy), because harassed by a policeman for weaving bears, he had
to save it. In spite of severe opposition from the fellow Muslims,
people like Hasan, though tiny in number, wanted to stay on in
secular India. It is ironical that at the end of the novel Hasan was
arrested on charge of not withstanding the liberal attitude of the
Indian people.
The Question of Security of Life and Property of the
Muslims
The declared official policy of the Indian government in West Bengal
was aimed at not evacuating the minorities, as had been done in
Punjab, but negotiating with the Pakistani authorities for creating
conditions of security, so that a mass exodus could be averted. A
number of initiatives were taken to this end. An inter-dominion
conference was held at Kolkata in April 1948 where the rehabilitation
ministers of the two states made a joint declaration that they are
determined to take every possible step to discourage such exodus
and to create such conditions as would check mass exodus in either
direction. Another inter-dominion conference met at Delhi in
December 1948 to follow up on these measures. Later Nehru-Liaquat
Pact was signed on 8 April 1950. These initiatives failed to check the
movement of the refugees from East Pakistan to West Bengal.
However, some Muslims who had previously migrated to East Bengal
returned to West Bengal. Some of them found their ancestral home
occupied by Hindu refugees. Muslim property was seized and
occupied in many areas to accommodate the refugees from East
Pakistan. The refugees even encroached on the graveyards of the
Muslims for settlements. Particularly in the areas around the city of
Kolkata, many refugee settlements were established on land
formerly inhabited by Muslim labourers and artisans who were
replaced by displaced Hindus from East Pakistan. Many Muslims
were dispossessed of their homes in the city leading to their
ghettoization in a few neighbourhoods. They became refugees in
their own land. Thus, it could be argued that East Bengali refugee
settlement across West Bengal affected the minority Muslim
community most adversely The need of the refugees for new homes
pitted them against local West Bengalis, but the widespread
dispossession of West Bengali Muslims must be seen as a
manifestation of East Bengali refugee communalism driven by as
much revenge, as a racist consciousness that marginalized or erased
Muslim presence in the new refugee homeland of West Bengal. The
left opposition members in the Legislative Assembly demanded
special provisions for the Muslim evacuees in the Eviction Bill (which
after subsequent modification became Act XVI of 1951).
The interests of the Muslims could have been safeguarded, at least to
some extent, if the West Bengal government had been more sincere
about it. Initially the West Bengal government was so confused about
rehabilitating the refugees from East Bengal that an influential section
thought about evicting the Muslims from the bordering districts of
West Bengal to accommodate the Hindu refugees from East Bengal.
Annadasankar Roy, then the District Magistrate of Murshidabad has
narrated his experience as well as the secret agenda of the West
Bengal Government towards the Muslims of the state in his Binur
Diary:
"One day Binu got a call from the Chief Minister to meet him. After
getting down at Sealdah station Binu bought a newspaper and saw that
West Bengal was not going to evict the Muslims. All were rumours.
Binu reached the secretariat and he was taken to the chamber of the
Chief Minister. The commissioner was present there. In the closed-
door chamber, the Chief Minister instructed him to push out the
Muslims beyond the border within a stipulated time. Binu was
astonished. The other District Magistrate requested to extend the
time a little. That was sanctioned Binu got out of the chamber and
said to his colleague, Bloodshed in unavoidable. I need written order.
You go inside and ask for written order. When he asked for written
order, the Home Secretary said, No written order will be provided.
Oral order is enough.
the Home Minister came to the bank of the Padma with
Commissioner. A lunch was arranged in their honour on the
Government touring launch. The minister was accompanied by a
group of his political colleagues
After the lunch, the minister and the commissioner went for rest.
Binu started chatting with the political workers. One of them, sitting
beside, said others: A telephone call from Delhi has been received.
Now he is not in the country. Do whatever you have to do.
Binu understood that Jawaharlal was abroad. They had to do what
they had thought out before his arrival. The minister came to
convince Binu to carry out their plan.
A request came from the ministers cabin wishing to meet Binu.
Stepping into the cabin Binu saw the commissioner present there.
That was a tri-party secret meeting.
The meeting started with an introduction praising Binu as an efficient
officer the minister informed Binu that a war with Pakistan was fast
approaching. If the Indian army acquired Rajshahi Binu would
definitely be the District Magistrate of Rajshahi.
Binu laughed inwardly! He had been the District Magistrate of
Rajshahi eleven years back. Recently one of his junior officers had
been promoted to the post of secretary bypassing him.
The minister continued, It is necessary to expel the suspected
community before the war. Who can trust the Muslim community of
the border region? They are secretly maintaining a tie with the
Muslims of Rajshahi. They are quasi-Pakistani. Can you drive them
out immediately?
I would not do it, rather I would resign. Binu disagreed, it could
not be done without bloodshed.
Let it be so no problem. Look, thousands of people are coming
from the other side due of government repression. How could we
rehabilitate them? What should be our policy? Tell me.
Rehabilitate them wherever you like. But not on the border. There is
not a single piece of vacant land here. Binu replied.
Who told you to formulate policy? We will formulate policy. If it is
our policy to drive the Muslims of the border out, could you carry it
out? The minister asked.
Binu moved his head, I can fight if needed but I cannot do such
assignment.
Two days later, the local MLA informed Binu, Another I.C.S is
coming in your place.
A large number of Muslims never thought of migrating to Pakistan.
Some of them even considered the Muslim Leagues demand for
Pakistan grossly unreasonable. Morshed Ali in Shawkat Alis novel
Warish was one of them. He admired the plurality of Indian society
based on unity in diversity. Naturally, he was not in favour of
migrating to Pakistan. One day he found that his newly built house
was occupied by a group of refugees from East Bengal. He
apprehended a conspiracy to uproot him from his soil. However, he
remained unmoved and thought that the communal tension was over.
He was wrong to read the situation. The situation continued to
worsen. Morshed and members of his family were humiliated. Forced
by the circumstances, Morshed decided to migrate to Pakistan
against his conviction.
The Congress led West Bengal Government failed to protect the
Muslims during the riot of 1964. During the Indo-Pak War in 1965, the
Muslims were in general looked down upon with great suspicion. A
large number of the Muslims of West Bengal were arrested and
humiliated without proper grounds. They were suspected as spies of
Pakistan. On the other hand, the Congress, the party in power, tried
its best to mobilize the Muslim vote in its favour by bringing the
prominent Muslim leaders to its fold. This strategy worked well up to
1962. The 1967 election was a great blow to the Congress in West
Bengal as well as other parts of the country. Congress lost eight states
after the General Election of 1967 . One of the obvious reasons was the
erosion in Muslim vote bank. The year 1967 is a turning point to the
Muslims of West Bengal too. They gradually came out of the fear
syndrome and begun to concentrate on economic development.
The identity crisis of the Muslims
The partition made the identity of the Muslims of West Bengal (as well
as Muslims of whole India) very problematic. What should be their
status in the newly created nation state, which had been formed on
the basis of religious identity? The identity crisis of the Muslims was
not altogether a product of the partition. However, the partition
added a new dimension to it. There had been an age-old dichotomy
between the Muslim identity and the Bengali identity. The identity of
the Muslims of Bengal had been partitioned long before the actual
partition happened. That fragmented identity of the Muslims of
Bengal haunted them very much. The Hindus of Bengal, in general,
believed that the Muslims of Bengal were not Bengalis. Primarily, two
factors were at play behind this misconception about the Muslims.
The Kolkata based Hindu Bengali intellectuals had an important role
in it. The majority of the Muslims of Kolkata were non- Bengali in
origin. They used to speak in Hindustani and Urdu. Moreover, the
upper class Muslims stressed their foreign origin publicly to enhance
their social status. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries, the Muslim writers of Bengal developed a distinct style of
Bengali language loaded with Urdu and Arabic words. However, at the
subaltern level, both the Hindus and the Muslims shared almost the
same language and culture. Yet the Muslims of Bengal often faced
embarrassing questions like, Oh, are you a Muslim? I thought you
are a Bengali. The Partition made the identity issue of the Muslims
more problematic than before. As a section of the Muslims had
demanded Pakistan, the loyalty of the Muslims as a whole was
questioned. They were labelled as anti-national and constantly
looked upon with a degree of suspicion. Even today, they required to
prove that they were not anti-nationals in their everyday life. They
are placed in the category of second-class citizen. In the popular
mainstream Hindi films, the Muslims were essentialized as feudal,
anti-modern, dogmatic, traitors and more recently, since the 1990s,
as terrorists. It is interesting that in the post-Independence Bengali
films, Muslims are almost missing though they form nearly one fourth
of the total population of West Bengal. Same thing has happened in
the case of West Bengal based Bengali literature.
The Question of Equity
Theoretically, under the secular constitution of India, all citizens are
equal in the eyes of law. The Indian state, which came out of partition,
declared itself secular. However, in actual practice, it failed to satisfy
the minorities. The minorities, particularly the Muslims were treated
separately on the ground of national security as their loyalty was
suspected. They were treated as outsiders. They were barred in
intelligence services. They are still ill represented in administrative
and other higher services as well as in academic institutions at all
India level. In West Bengal, the situation was no better. Here, the
Muslims were historically far behind the Hindus in respect of wealth,
power and education. It was only during the last two decades of the
undivided Bengal that the Muslim middle class came out to challenge
the superiority of their Hindu counterparts by utilizing the newly
acquired political power and benefits of reservation in government
jobs. With the partition, the situation changed drastically. The benefit
of reservation was withdrawn. Moreover, the arrival of the educated
middle class refugees from East Pakistan made it very difficult for the
Muslim youth to find a job. Some times the pro-Hindu attitude of the
employers came in their way. Sayed Abdul Halim, a retired Deputy
Inspector of School, Government of West Bengal spoke out about the
discrimination he had experienced in his whole tenure of service.
I served honestly and sincerely through out my service life (1955-
91). However, I did not get due promotion though many of my junior
officers got that. It was very difficult for the educated Muslim youth
to get jobs in our times before the coming of the West Bengal School
Service Commission, as almost all the school managing committees
were controlled by the Hindus; it was very difficult for our boys to get
into the school service. Today my two sons are serving in schools. I
am sure; they could not have got these jobs if the School Service
Commission had not been formed.
Though Muslims are inadequately represented in the state services
there is no provision for any reservation for them in West Bengal.
Some other states like Kerala have provided statutory reservations
for Muslims in jobs and admission in educational institutions.
Muslims account for 23% of the population of Kerala. Provisions for
reservation have been made for them by the Government of Kerala
under Articles 15 (4) and 16 (4) of the Constitution of India and there
has been no legal hurdle to such reservations.
Conclusion
Thus, the partition had a disastrous effect on the Muslims of Bengal.
The partition drove out the creamy layer of the Muslim society of
West Bengal. Those who stayed on were progressively marginalized in
every aspect of life. During the first two decades after partition, they
faced a tremendous communal hostility. The Hindus, particularly the
Hindu refugees demonized the Muslims, as a collective cultural
memory of uprootment from their homeland (for which they blamed
the Muslims) had been very much powerful among them. The Hindu
Bengali refugees intensified the general hostility towards the Muslims
of West Bengal that was reflected in repeated attacks on them. The
prime agenda of the Muslims of West Bengal was how to secure their
life and property. They isolated themselves into ghettos, particularly
in the riot-affected areas like Kolkata. The ghettoization of the
Muslims and their withdrawal from the mainstream society is one of
the greatest tragedies of contemporary history of West Bengal. They
faced a very complex crisis of identity. How to locate themselves in
the new political system that emerged out of Independence/ Partition
was one of the greatest challenges to the Muslims of West Bengal (as
well as India). They were isolated, alienated and their identity was
fragmented. Therefore, we have now the reproduction of the concept
of partition as the only way out, even when the nation is not being
territorially partitioned. Each group now must have its own defined
territory. Our nationalist history seems have left no other solution for
us. Thus, the territorial partition leads to more fragmentation in the
partitioned societies, which is evident from the experience of the
Muslims of West Bengal after the Partition in 1947 .
[A version of this paper has been published in Indian Journal of
Politics, Vol. XLII, No.1 & 2 (January-June 2009)]
Posted by Tridib Santapa Kundu at Sunday, August 23, 2009
103 comments:
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 02 , 2 008

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3 ? On the question of Partition, Indian
historiography occupies a paradoxical position. On the one hand,
Partition has dominated the consciousness of nationalist and
professional historians in a remarkable wayOn the other hand, the
history of Partition is effectively suppressed by the focus on Indias
freedom struggle--- the unity of India and the nationalist enterprise
continued almost unaffected by Partition and all that accompanied it.
The history of Partition (sometimes called the history of
communalism) is presented separately, or at best as a subordinate
and apparently (in the long run) inconsequential motif in the larger
drama on Indias struggle for independence.

3 Seminar Partition was not
only a division of properties, of assets and liabilities. It was also, to
use a phrase that Partition victims use repeatedly, a division of
hearts. It brought untold suffering, tragedy, trauma, pain, violence
to communities who had hitherto lived together in some kind of
social contract. It separated families across an arbitrarily drawn
border, sometime overnight, and made it practically impossible for
people to know if their parents, sisters, brothers, children were alive
or dead, and these aspects of the Partition --- how people coped with
the trauma, how they rebuilt their lives, what resources, both
physical and mental, they drew upon, how their experience of
dislocation and trauma shaped their lives, and indeed the cities and
towns they settled in---find little reflection in written history. 7
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Unbiased at least he was when he arrived on his mission,
Having never set eyes on the land he was called to partition
Between two peoples fanatically at odds,
With their different diets and incompatible gods.
Time,' they had briefed him in London, is short. It's too late
For mutual reconciliation or rational debate:
The only solution now lies in separation.
The Viceroy thinks, as you will see from his letter,
That the less you are seen in his company the better,
So we've arranged to provide you with other accommodation.
We can give you four judges, two Moslem and two Hindu,
To consult with, but the final decision must rest with you.'
Shut up in a lonely mansion, with police night and day
patrolling the gardens to keep the assassins away,
He got down to work, to the task of settling the fate
Of millions. The maps at his disposal were out of date
And the Census Returns almost certainly incorrect,
But there was no time to check them, no time to inspect
Contested areas. The weather was frightfully hot,
And a bout of dysentery kept him constantly on the trot,
But in seven weeks it was done, the frontiers decided,
A continent for better or worse divided.
The next day he sailed for England, where he could quickly forget
The case, as a good lawyer must. Return he would not,
Afraid, as he told his Club, that he might get shot.
Marya Manne Gaza Strip
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Borders are scratched across the
hearts of men
By strangers with a calm, judicial
pen,
And when the borders bleed we
watch with dread
The lines of ink across the map
turn red.
Paul Muldoon Boundary Commission
'P
You remember that village where the border ran
Down the middle of the street,
With the butcher and baker in different states?
Today he remarked how a shower of rain
Had stopped so cleanly across Golightly's lane
It might have been a wall of glass
That had toppled over. He stood there, for ages,
To wonder which side, if any, he should be on.

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1. Pandey, Gyanendra, The Prose of Otherness. In Arnold.D&

Hardiman D (ed), Subaltern Studies, OUP, Delhi, 1994, pp. 188-221
2. Memories of Partition, Seminar, vol. 420, August 1994
3. W.H. Auden, Partition,
http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/868.html
4. Marya Manne, Gaza Strip,
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200303/hitchens
5. Paul Muldoon, Boundary Commission, http://www.complete-
review.com/reviews/muldoonp/whybleft.htm
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Posted by Tridib Santapa Kundu at Thursday, October 02, 2008
7 comments:
SATURDAY, AUGUST 1 6 , 2 008
Published in Utkal Historical Research Journal, Vol.XIX, 2006
Partition as a Means of Conflict Resolution: A
Case of the Bengal Boundary Commission and
the Partition of Bengal, 1947
Introduction
Partition has long been used as a tool of resolving ethnic
and communal problems. It got wide acceptance after the
Second World War and more particularly during the Cold
War regime. The Partition of Germany, Korea, and Vietnam
are some of the instances of territorial partition. The
Partition of the British Indian Empire followed the same
tradition. The partition theorists have argued that physical
separation of warring ethnic groups may be the only
possible solution to civil war. However this argument has
recently been severely criticized by a group of scholars
particularly after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and
the resurgence of ethnic violence in different parts of the
world. The Partition of Bengal as a part of larger project of
the Partition of the British Indian Empire reveals some
interesting features and also challenges the basic
arguments of the partition theorists.
Recent Debate on Partition as a Means of Conflict
Resolution
The leading partition theorists like Chaim Kaufmann , John
Mearsheimer and Stephen Van Evera and before them,
Donald Horowitzer provided the basic arguments in favour
of partition. Most of the advocates of partition advance four
basic arguments.
The first is that partition might be unpalatable,
nevertheless it is a humane way of dealing with an ethnic
conflict because it attempts to achieve through negotiation
what would otherwise be achieved through war; it
telescopes the conflict and saves lives.
The second argument, which draws partially on Wilsonian
ideas, is that partition might be the chosen route to self-
determination.
The third is that partition might not fully address the
roots of the conflict, but it does at least contain it.
The fourth, which draws on the third, is that partition
provides an exit for great powers.
On the other hand, scholars like Radha Kumar , Nicholas
Sambanis and others have developed a theoretical as well as
empirical critique of partition. Their main arguments are
Partition is a limiting solution. Ethnic cooperation may be
possible even after civil war. Both ethnic diffusion and third
party security guarantees could facilitate such cooperation.
Partition may also be too severe a solution. Forced
population movements cause tremendous human suffering
and violate important human rights.
Endorsing ethnic partition may in fact encourage
partition movements in other countries.
Partitions create undemocratic successor states, likely to
repress their minorities as their predecessors did before
them.
Finally, successor states will rarely be ethnically
homogeneous. They may therefore incorporate new ethnic
antagonism. Moreover, partition does not resolve the
underlying problem of ethnic rivalry; so it is possible for
civil wars that end in partition to be transformed into
interstate war between predecessor and successor states.
Radha Kumar has emphasized the high cost associated with
the process---the millions displaced, the hundreds of
thousands killedas well as other important consequences,
suggesting that partition, can trigger further fragmentation
and conflict. Stories and images of the millions injured and
dead that accompanied the population transfer in post-
partition India, Palestine, and Cyprus are enough for many
to condemn this method as barbaric and inhumane. Critics
charge that this experience should be enough to dismiss the
idea that even organized population transfer are possible.
Further, there is a deeper philosophical opposition to even
organized population transfer, arguing that it is contrary to
human dignity; indeed, population transfer is a violation of
many fundamental human rights. Nicholas Sambanis on
the other hand have produced the first empirical study on
the viability of partition. His research dismisses pro-
partition claims. In his opinion, partition does not
sufficiently prevent war recurrence, which suggests, at the
very least, that separating ethnic groups does not resolve
the problem of violent ethnic antagonism. In the context of
the present state of debate we can study the process and
consequence of the Bengal Partition and the making of the
new Bengal border.
Bengal: The Parting of Ways
By the end of 1946 it became almost evident in political
circle that the Partition of the British Empire was
unavoidable. The Undivided Sovereign Bengal Plan
launched by Sarat Basu in cooperation with Abul Hasim and
Suhrawandy failed to strike roots in the Bengali minds. The
public opinion was shaped heavily by the horrors of
communal riots. The Hindu Mahasabha and the Congress
demanded immediate partition of the province and
launched a concerted movement in favour of it. At the all
India level Congress and Muslim League agreed on a
peaceful transfer of power at the cost of Partition. When
Mountbatten announced his Partition Plan, popularly
known as 3rd June Plan, neither Muslim League nor
Congress opposed it.
The 3rd June Plan provided the basic guidelines of the
partition scheme of the sub-continent and the 1941 Census
was accepted as the baseline. The authenticity of the 1941
Census was very much dubious. It even failed to satisfy the
Census Commissioner, MWM Yeats. He expressed his
dissatisfaction in the introductory remarks of the 1941
Census itself . The Census operation was affected by a
number of factors. The War, the poor financial condition of
the Government as well as the lack of tabulation facilities,
buildings and officers hampered the process. Political
condition was strenuous. At that time Gandhis civil
disobedience campaign was in full swing and all over North
India the census, as a governmental activity, incurred
hostility. More over, different communities intentionally
manipulated the census enumeration for political purpose.
Even a British poet W.H Auden in his poem entitled
Partition alludes to the faulty 1941 Census numbers used
by Radcliffe while drawing the boundary lines!
He got down to work, to the task of settling the fate
Of millions. The maps at his disposal were out of date
And the Census Returns almost certainly incorrect,
But there was no time to check them, no time to inspect the
contested areas
The Govt. identified some districts of Bengal as Muslim
majority districts on the basis of the 1941 Census as an
immediate move towards partition. These districts were
Chittagong, Noakhali and Tripura of Chittagong Division;
Bakerganj, Dacca, Faridpur and Mymensingh of Dacca
Division; Jessore, Murshidabad and Nadia of Presidency
Division; Bogra, Dinajpur, Malda, Pabna, Rajshahi and
Rangpur of Rajshahi Division. The Muslim majority areas
were to be included in Pakistan and the Hindu majority
areas in India. According to the Plan, the Bengal Legislative
Assembly was divided into two parts and they met
separately on 20 June 1947 to decide the question of
partition. The majority of representatives of the Hindu
majority districts voted in favour of the partition of Bengal,
while those of the Muslim majority districts voted against
it. On the basis of this vote, it was taken that the will of
partition had been sufficiently established. The Plan also
proposed the formation of a Boundary Commission to draw
the final boundary line between the two parts of Bengal.
Drawing the Boundary Line: The Formation of the Bengal
Boundary Commission
National borders are political constructs, imagined
projections of territorial power. Although they appear on
maps in deceptively precise forms, they reflect, at least
initially, merely the mental images of politicians, lawyers,
and intellectuals. The mapping of the modern borders was a
process first perfected in Europe but soon applied all over
the world. The border revealed the territorial consolidation
of the state as well as the markers of the actual power of that
state. It was, in a way, an offspring of the idea of the nation
state. The nation state formation in South Asia passed
through a tricky process of boundary making. The new
borders of India and Pakistan and later Bangladesh were
curved out of the unified British Empire.
The Bengal Boundary commission was constituted on 30
June 1947. The members appointed in the Commission
were Justice Bijan Kumar Mukherjea, Justice C.C. Biswas,
Justice Abu Saleh Mohamad Akram and Justice S.A.
Rahaman. Sir Cyril Radcliffe was appointed as the Chairman
of the Commission. The Boundary Commission was
instructed to demarcate the boundaries of the two parts of
Bengal on the basis of ascertaining the contiguous areas of
Muslims and non-Muslims. In doing so, it will also take into
account other factors. It was also instructed to finalize the
report before 15 August. After preliminary meetings, the
commission invited the submission of memoranda and
representations by interested parties. A large number of
memoranda and representations were received. The public
sitting of the Commission took place in Calcutta between 16
July and 24 July at a stretch with the exception of 20 July (a
Sunday). Arguments were presented to the Commission by
numerous parties on both sides. However, the main cases
were presented by counsel on behalf of the Indian National
Congress, the Bengal Provincial Hindu Mahasabha and the
New Bengal Association on the one hand, and on the behalf
of the Muslim League on the other. As Radcliffe acted as the
Chairman of the Punjab Boundary Commission
simultaneously, he did not attend the public sittings in
person. After the close of the time of public sittings, the
Commission devoted its time for clarification and
discussion of the issues involved. The discussion took place
in Calcutta.
Problems Faced by Radcliffe
As the Chairman of the Bengal Boundary Commission,
Radcliffe faced some serious problems which were
mentioned in the Award. These were as follows:
1. To which State was the City of Calcutta to be assigned, or
was it possible to adopt any method of dividing the City
between the two States?
2. If the City of Calcutta must be assigned as a whole to one
or other of the States, what were its indispensable claims to
the control of territory, such as all or part of the Nadia river
system or Kulti rivers, upon which the life of Calcutta as a
city and port depended?
3. Could the attraction of the Ganges-Padma-Madhumati
river line displace the strong claims of the heavy
concentration of Muslim majorities in the districts of
Jessore and Nadia without doing too great a violence to the
principles of our terms of reference?
4. Could the district of Khulna usefully be held in a State
different from that which held the district of Jessore?
5. Was it right to assign to Eastern Bengal the considerable
block of non-Muslim majorities in the district of Malda and
Dinajpur?
6. Which States claim ought to prevail in respect of the
districts of Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri, in which the Muslim
population amounted to 2.42 per cent of the whole in case
of Darjeeling, and to 23.08 per cent of the whole of
Jalpaiguri, but which constituted an area not in any natural
sense contiguous to another non-Muslim area of Bengal?
7. To which State should the Chittagong Hill Tracts be
assigned, an area in which the Muslim population was only
3 per cent of the whole, but which it was difficult to assign
to a State different from that which controlled the district of
Chittagong itself?
Radcliffe Award
The Radcliffe Award was published on 17 August 1947 two
days after the Independence after much speculation. It
drew a dividing line between the two parts of Bengal (See
Map 1)
1. To East Bengal (East Pakistan) was assigned the whole of
the Chittagong and Dacca Division comprising seven
districts; the whole of the Rangpur, Bogra, Rajshahi and
Pabna districts of the Rajshahi Division and the whole of the
Khulna district of the Presidency Division.
2. To West Bengal was assigned the whole of the Burdwan
Division; the districts of Calcutta, the 24 Parganas and
Murshidabad of the Presidency Division and the Darjeeling
district of the Rajshahi Division.
3. The five districts of undivided Bengal viz. Nadia, Jessore,
Dinajpur, Jalpaiguri and Malda were, of course, divided
between West Bengal and East Bengal (Pakistan).
4. In Nadia districts, twelve Police Stations, viz. Alamdanga,
Bhoiramana, Chandanga, Damurhuda, that part of
Daulatpur, east of the river Mathabhanga, Gangani,
Jilannagar, Khoksa, Kumarkhali, Kushtia and Mirpur were
assigned to East Pakistan. These police stations constituted
1352 square miles in area.
5. Jessore largely remained in East Bengal. Only two police
stations of the district viz. Bongaon and Gaighata were
added to 24 Parganas district of West Bengal which
comprised 319.8 square miles in area.
6. In the case of Dinajpur district, ten police stations were
included in West Bengal. They were Banshihari, a part of
Balurghat, (west of the main north-south railway line),
Hemtabad, Itahar, Kaliaganj, Kosmandi, Kumarganj,
Rajganj, Sangarampur and Tapan. The remainder of the
district went to East Pakistan.
7. The whole of Jalpaiguri district was included in West
Bengal except five police stations and some enclaves, south
of Cooch Behar State. These five police stations were Bada,
Debiganj, Pachagar, Patgram and Tetulia. They constituted
672 square miles area.
8. In Malda district the following five police stations were
assigned to East Pakistan. They were Bholaghat,
Gomastapur, Nachol, Nawabganj and Shibganj. They
accounted for 596 square miles in area. The remainder of
the district came to West Bengal.
9. The whole district of Sylhet was transformed from the
province of Assam to the new province of East Pakistan,
excepting for the four police stations of Patharkandi,
Rataleari, Karimganj and Badanpur. These police stations
were inhabited mostly by the Bengali speaking Hindus.
10. Murshidabad district did not lose to East Pakistan any
entire police station. However, several maujas (village
clusters) of a number of bordering police stations were
subject to dispute or in de facto possession of East Bengal.
The Award gave West Bengal an area of 28000 square miles,
containing a population of 21.19 million people of which
nearly 5.3 million (or 29%) were Muslims. East Bengal got
49000 square miles for a population of 39.11 million, of
which 29.1% (11.4 million) were Hindus. West Bengal got
36.36% of the land to accommodate some 35.14% of people,
while East Bengal got 63.6% of land to accommodate 64.85%
of population.
An Evaluation of the works of the Commission
The Radcliffe Award received severe criticism from almost
every corner. People resented certain features of the Award.
However, much of the discontents with the Award were
specific rather than general: while particular aspects of it
were criticized in the strongest terms, the Award as a whole
was not challenged. This sort of discontent was voiced
chiefly by those who found themselves on the wrong side of
the border. The Muslims in Murshidabad and Nabadwip
were furious for their inclusion in West Bengal. Five
southern thanas of Jalpaiguri protested their inclusion in
East Pakistan. So did the Hindus who found themselves in
the wrong part of Dinajpur. However, the strongest protest
came from Khulna which was a Hindu majority district. It
is fair to say that this sort of criticism of the Radcliffe line
was far from being a critique of partition, or even of the
Award as a whole. It was the panic-stricken response of
people who realized, too late, that they had been shut out of
their promised land.
However there were some general and fundamental
problems relating to the Award. Joya Chatterji has pointed
out some of them. First of all the Award was surrounded by
severe uncertainty. This was chiefly the product of
misinformation. Most of the people simply did not have
access to the printed document and did not know what it
contained. Satinath Bhaduri has portrayed vividly the
confusion and uncertainty among the common people
regarding the Award in his short story Gananayak (The
Champion of the People) .Bibhuti Bhushan Mukhopadhyay
in his short story Acharya Kripalini Colony also portrayed
the confusion around the Award particularly in the border
regions. In that tensed and confusing situation, land price
greatly increased because people residing in the border
areas were very eager to secure a safer place for themselves.
Secondly, Radcliffe drafted the border line on the basis of
physical or natural markers and pre-existing
administrative borders. Parts of it were traced over the
boundaries between thanas and districts, other parts
followed the course of large rivers and their tributaries. On
paper the result was a clear and tidy line. But the picture on
the ground was very different. The frontiers between
thanas and even between districts were not physically
marked out. Actual administrative boundaries could only
be established with reference to survey and settlement
maps, which were often inaccurate and almost always
outdated. Naturally it created so many administrative
problems at the micro level. Very often the settlement
maps differed from the crime maps used by the local police
stations to establish their jurisdiction. Radcliffe accepted
the thana as the smallest unit of partition, but he used
settlement maps rather than crime maps to mark out the
border. Contradictions between the two maps were sought
to be exploited by both sides, each insisting on whichever
interpretation would give it more territory.
Thirdly, the geographical and natural boundaries did not
work much better in providing border posts in Radcliffes
Award. A number of rivers formed a vital part in Radcliffes
line. Some of them were fed by the melting Himalayan ice-
caps and flowed throughout the year. Others were rain fed,
and except for the monsoon months, dried up to a trickle.
Moreover, the rivers frequently changed their course.
Radcliffe had not given any thought to the possibility of
rivers changing course----a serious lapse in a province
whose rivers were notoriously wayward. The river chars
became a major center of conflict between the two states.
These problems could have been avoided, or at least
minimized, had Radcliffe and the Boundary Commission
done their job with greater care.
The Factors that Sealed the Fate of the Commission
We can identify some of the factors which severely affected
the working of the Commission and ultimately sealed the
fate of the Commission.
1. The structure and composition of the Commission
Radcliffe was widely respected for his intellectual abilities,
but he had never been to India. Paradoxically, this fact
made him a more attractive candidate, on the theory that
ignorance of India would equal to impartiality. He was
appointed as the chairman of both the Boundary
Commissions for partitioning Bengal and Punjab. Each
commission was composed of four judges, two selected by
Congress and two by the League. In the end, this two-
versus-two format and the judges strong political biases
produced deadlock, leaving Radcliffe the responsibility to
take all the most difficult decisions himself . The Boundary
Commission is instructed to demarcate the boundaries of
the two parts of Bengal on the basis of ascertaining the
contiguous majority areas of Muslims and non-Muslims. In
doing so, it will also take into account other factors. These
terms, i.e. the other factors, allowed the Chairman
enormous freedom of action. However, after the final
boundary decision, known as the Radcliffe Award, had been
announced, all sides complained that Radcliffe had not
taken the right other factors into account. The
commissions membership, composed entirely of legal
experts, hampered its boundary-making effort but added a
valuable veneer of justice and legitimacy. Its composition
of equal numbers of Congress and League nominees paved
the way to deadlock but created an appearance of political
balance. The presence of these political nominees came at
the expense of the use of the necessary geographical
experts, but satisfied the demands of Congress, League, and
of course the British Government to have their own men on
the commission. The absence of outside participantsfor
example, from the United Nationsalso satisfied the British
Governments urgent desire to save face by avoiding the
appearance that it required outside help to governor stop
governingits own empire.
2. The Time Schedule
The structure and composition of the Commission limited
its effectiveness, but the most serious flaw was the
extremely tight timetable that the British Government,
Congress, and League imposed on it. Radcliffe arrived in
India on July 8 and met with Mountbatten and the
nationalist leaders soon thereafter. It was at this meeting
that Radcliffe learned, apparently for the first time, that the
boundary must be completed by August 15. He protested,
but Mountbatten, Nehru, and Jinnah stood firm. Despite
warnings that the time restriction could spoil the end
result, they wanted the line finished by August 15. The
Commissions extremely tight timetable made it impossible
to make the necessary geographical surveys and gather
other information vital to a systematic boundary making.
Time Schedul e of t he Bengal Boundary Commission
03 June: Announce of t he Mounbat t en Plan
3 0 June: Const it ut ion of t he Bengal Boundar y Commission wit h Radcliffe
as t he chair man
08 July : Radcliffe ar r iv ed in Delhi and meet t he Indian leader s
1 6-2 4 July : Public sit t ings of t he Commission held in Calcut t a
1 3 August : Radcliffe submit t ed t he Repor t
1 7 August : The Awar d was announced publicly

3. Radcliffes Ignorance about Boundary Making Process
Radcliffes efforts were further hampered by the fact that he
was almost completely ignorant of the technical
information and procedural requirements necessary to
draw an international boundary, though these were well
established by 1947 . Moreover, he lacked any advisors
versed in even the basics of boundary-making, and only his
private secretary, Christopher Beaumont, was familiar with
the realities of administration and everyday life in the
Punjab. Radcliffes South Asian colleagues, all legal experts
like himself, were as ignorant as their Chairman of
boundary-making requirements.
4. The Undeclared Political Ends of the Commission
Radcliffe was not as unbiased, nor as ignorant, as the Indian
leaders assumed. On the contrary, his wartime experience
as director-general of the British Ministry of Information,
along with his sound Establishment background, left him
intimately familiar with the goals and interests of His
Majestys Government. There is no evidence that Radcliffe
was biased against Hindus, Muslims, or Sikhs, but he was
certainly biased in favor of preserving British interests. As
far as its undeclared political ends were concerned, then,
the Radcliffe Commission was well arranged.
Unfortunately, the forces that shaped the Commission to
fulfill political needs also prevented it from following well-
established boundary-making procedures.
Consequences of the Radcliffes Awards: Radcliffes Ghost is
still visible in the Subcontinent.
The Partition led to a new set of problems. Radcliffe had
drawn an artificial line between India and Pakistan. Not
only were the new borders artificial, but also many did not
know for sure where they belonged, because the border had
not been physically demarcated on the ground. It not only
divided a nation but also cut through the middle of several
villages; in some cases, while the main house was in one
country, the servant quarters or bathrooms were in
another. More importantly, it disrupted the traditional way
of life and people were cut off from their traditional
markets, sources of livelihood, medical facilities, etc. it
produced a number of enclaves, large scale trans-border
migration, smuggling, terrorism, border disputes, river
water disputes and so on.
1. The Enclave Problem
The Radcliffe Award produced a very complex problem i.e.
the enclave problem. It left a large number of people
virtually stateless. There are 51 Bangladeshi enclaves in
India and 111 Indian enclaves in Bangladesh. Of these
disputed enclaves, 65 are along the West Bengal-
Bangladesh border (35 Indian enclaves in Bangladesh
territory and 31 in reverse.) The problem of enclaves is a
legacy of the dissipated life styles of the rulers of two former
princely states of Cooch Behar in North Bengal and Rangpur
in South Bengal (present day Bangladesh). The Rajas of the
two princely states routinely staked pieces of their estates
over a game of cards, and thus came to acquire pockets of
land in each others territory. The lands were pledged on
piece of paper known as chits and hence, these lands are
still called chits. The ownership of these enclaves devolved
upon India and East Pakistan after partition in 1947. Sir
Cyril Radcliffe drew the dividing line as the parties involved
failed to arrive at any agreed border. He was concerned with
not disturbing the railway communications and river
systems rather than the issue of enclaves. He left the
problem unresolved and thus, sowed the seed of a long
lasting and complex dispute between the partitioned states
of South Asia.
This issue was not resolved till 1971, when East Pakistan
became Bangladesh, and inherited the problem. The
residents of these enclaves were initially free to move to
their respective mainland. But increased tension between
India and Pakistan led to this movement being restricted,
and problems arising in trade and transit. There has been
no administration in these enclaves for the last 50 years.
Hence, no police, no revenue, no taxation, and no
government services are available. Over the years, the
Bengali Muslims in the enclaves in India have migrated to
other parts of the state (West Bengal), and the Hindus in the
Indian enclaves inside Bangladesh have migrated to India.
These enclaves have long been at the centre of Indo-east
Pakistani and the Indo-Bangladeshi boundary disputes
since Cooch Behar acceded to India in 1949.
2. Porous Border: Trans-border migration and terrorism
It is a well-known fact that illegal immigration from
erstwhile East Pakistan and present Bangladesh has led to
serious social tension in West Bengal and the entire
northeastern region. On account of the Partition of the
Indian subcontinent in 1947, Hindu refugees moved from
East Pakistan, without much interruption, to various parts
of India, especially to West Bengal, till 1971, when political
boundaries in South Asia were redrawn. Even after the
emergence of Bangladesh as an independent country in
1971, the march of refugees to West Bengal appeared to be
ceaseless. In the days of Pakistan, most of the refugees
coming to West Bengal were members of the minority
communities in East Bengal (East Pakistan), viz. Hindus,
Buddhists and Christians. As a consequence, during 1951
1961, Hindu share of population in East Pakistan came down
to 3.5% with growth rate of only 1.53%. [i.e. from 22.0% in
1951 to 18.5% in 1961]. Even during 19611974 period Hindu
population share further declined by 5% to 13.5% in 1974. A
large number of Hindu families who crossed over to India
during the liberation war of Bangladesh in 1971 did not
return.
After the emergence of sovereign Bangladesh in 1971 the
Muslims in West Bengal did not feel any urge to migrate to
Bangladesh. On the contrary, a huge number of Muslims
started infiltrating primarily in the bordering districts of
West Bengal. Consequently, the Muslim population in the
border districts as well as in other interior districts of West
Bengal increased in geometric progression.
It is observed from the Bangladesh Population Census 2001,
Hindu population share has come down to 9.2% only.
During the last 50 years since 1951, very lower growth rate
indicates massive migration of Hindu population from
Bangladesh to India, particularly in the state of West
Bengal. On the other hand, a steady growth of Muslim
population since 1951 has enhanced their population share
to 89.7% in 2001 from 76.9% in 1951. During the last five
decades (19512001) growth of Muslim population in
Bangladesh is 244.68% as against 23.16% growth of Hindu
population. Side by side, growth of Muslim population in
West Bengal during the same period is 310.93%, showing
much higher growth rate than Bangladesh. It clearly
indicates massive Muslim infiltration from Bangladesh to
West Bengal.
The problem of illegal immigration continued unabated.
The porous border and ready availability of shelter
encouraged more infiltration from Bangladesh. Local vote
bank politics also encouraged such migration. The
Bangladesh government, while covertly encouraging such
movement, officially denies that there has been any illegal
influx of its people to any part of India.
In the post-partition period, the quantum of illegal
immigration to Assam has been phenomenal. It became a
crucial issue for the Assamese because they feared that the
population profile of the Assam Valley would change in
favour of immigrant Muslims if the influx continued. In
Tripura the migrants have outnumbered the indigenous
tribals. It is primarily due to this reason that there is
violence and insurgency in the state.
The Bengal border has traditionally been peaceful and quite
open. Although the number of authorized transit points for
goods and people is limited, for villagers living on both sides
of the border, it virtually does not exist. Traditionally,
villagers have been crossing the border to access markets,
raw materials, medical facilities, etc. For example, it is a
known fact that almost all of the cycle-rickshaw pullers in
Agartala, the capital of Tripura, come every morning from
Bangladesh to carry on their trade and go back the same
evening. They also carry head loads of smuggled goods both
ways. Both governments have generally ignored this kind of
informal cross-border trade.
The existing legal structure in 1947 did not envisage any
such partition and was not capable of meeting the new
challenges which arose due to this decision. It was only in
1955 that the Indian Citizenship Act was passed by
Parliament, and it was not till 1967 that a new Act, which
took cognizance of illegal immigration into India, was
passed.
Initially, the Government of India did not pay much
attention to this border, which was thinly policed, mainly
by armed police battalions of Assam and West Bengal. This
state of affairs was not very satisfactory and in 1965, a
central force, the BSF, replaced the state police. However,
the BSF was never deployed in sufficient strength and the
main problems plaguing this border continue. These
chiefly consisted of trans-border trafficking by various
underground groups to set up training camps and bases in
erstwhile East Pakistan and Bangladesh. The Naga and Mizo
insurgents travelled extensively across this border to bring
men, material and supplies to wage war against India. Later,
other underground outfits of various northeastern
insurgent groups also used this porous border to bring in
arms and ammunition and send across recruits for arms
training. They also used it for drug smuggling. In fact,
taking advantage of this thinly policed border, not only
local insurgent groups but also Kashmiri and Pan-Islamic
terrorist groups have been using it, particularly since the
mid-1990s, to send their leaders and trained cadres for
carrying out terrorist activities in India. The porous border
allowed easy flow of migrants from East Pakistan and later
Bangladesh, which are densely populated, to West Bengal,
Assam and other northeastern states.
3. Problems of the Sharing of River Water
The boundary line demarcated in 1947 defied all logic of
geography and introduced a new dimension in the South
Asian region, hydro-politics or conflict over water. The
Partition of the Sub continent created a severe problem in
the management of river water. While in 1960, the Indus
water sharing problem was resolved after prolonged
negotiation between the two states in mediation of the
World Bank, the Ganges river water problem remained
unresolved till today.
The Ganges river dispute has been regarded as one of the
long lasting and most interesting international water
disputes. The river flows down from the Himalayan Nanda
Devi range and incorporates the riparian states of India,
Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal and China. The river flows for
over 92% of its course within India, before merging with the
Brahmaputra and Meghna rivers in Bangladesh and then
flowing out into the Bay of Bengal (indeed the Ganges-
Brahmaputra-Meghna system is responsible for the
existence of Bangladesh itself which is a delta formed from
systems silt deposits).
The debate originated in 1951 with the publication of the
Indian plan of constructing a barrage at Farakka, 17
kilometers away from the border. The barrage would
reportedly divert 40000 cusecs out of a dry season average
flow of 50,000 cusecs from the Ganges into the Bhagirathi-
Hooghly tributary, to provide silt-free flow into Calcutta
Bay, which would improve navigability for the city's port
during dry months and keep saltwater from the city's water
supply. The Pakistani government officially attracted the
attention of the Indian government about the plan. On 8
March 1952, the Indian government replied that the project
was only under preliminary investigation. Over the next
years, Pakistan occasionally responded to reports of Indian
plans for diversion projects of the Ganges, with little Indian
response. In 1957, and again in 1958, Pakistan offered a
bundle of proposals for the better management of the river
water which was crucial for her survival. India virtually
turned down all the proposals. Later it was agreed that
water resources experts of the two countries would meet to
exchange their views.
Thereafter several expert-level meetings between India and
Pakistan were held. In the meantime (1961), India
announced the initiation of the construction of the Farakka
Barrage which was completed in 1970. However, water was
not diverted at that time, because the feeder canal to the
Bhagirathi-Hooghly system was not yet completed.
Bangladesh came into being in 1971, and by March 1972, the
governments of India and Bangladesh agreed to establish
the Indo-Bangladesh Joint Rivers Commission, to develop
the waters of the rivers common to the two countries on a
cooperative basis. After long discussion the two sides
agreed that a mutually acceptable solution to issues around
the Ganges would be reached before operating the Farakka
Barrage. On 16 May 1974, the prime ministers of India and
Bangladesh met in New Delhi and signed on a joint
declaration on the issue. After that the trial operation of the
Farakka Barrage started on 16 April 1975. India continued to
divert Ganges water after the trial run, without negotiating
a suitable agreement with Bangladesh. Bangladesh lodged a
formal protest against India with the UNO. As a result the
Ganges Water Agreement was signed on 5 November 1977
only for a short term basis. Ultimately in 1996 an agreement
was made between the two countries. The 1996 Agreement
undoubtedly heralded a new chapter in the Indo-
Bangladesh relationship. However, the Agreement had
some serious flaws and thus failed to provide a permanent
solution to the Ganges water dispute. The artificially
created boundary not only produced severe tension in the
relationship between the two neighbouting states but also
grave environmental problems in the subcontinent.
The changing course of the Ganges has posed a serious
threat to the Farakka Barrage itself as well as the future of
the people of a large part of Malda and Murshidabad. The
uninterrupted encroachment of the river towards its left
bank may outflank the barrage and open a new course
through the present Kalindi-Mahananda route. The land
eroded from the left bank of the Ganges in Malda is more
than 200 sq.km, while that in Murshidabad is about 356
sq,km. Millions of rupees are wasted every year in bank
protection. The rehabilitation of the erosion-victims is a
serious problem to the state government.
5. Border Clashes
The Indo-Bangladesh (previously East Pakistan) border is
the longest land border which India has with any of its
neighbours. The hastily created border did not bother
about the basic norms of boundary making. Naturally it
produced a number of problems. The incomplete
demarcation, existence of a large number of enclaves and
adverse possession made the situation grave in the Bengal
borderland. Cyril Radcliffe botched up the job in the east by
drawing a straight line through villages and rivers, houses
and marketplaces. Neither did the Indian members of the
commission at that time, nor did their successors who
came to rule the country later, care to undo the damage by
rationally demarcating the border. As a result, border
conflicts continue to plague India and its neighbour
Bangladesh. Initially, the Government of India did not pay
much attention to this border, which was thinly policed,
mainly by armed police battalions of Assam and West
Bengal. This state of affairs was not very satisfactory and in
1965, a central force, the BSF, replaced the state police.
However, the BSF was never deployed in sufficient strength
and the main problems plaguing this border continue. The
result has been the recurrent border clashes between BSF
and BDR, each of these being required to protect and defend
a 4,000 km border that is porous along certain stretches,
parts of which keep on changing according to the
unpredictable course of the rivers that run by them, and
including a 6.5 km stretch that has not yet been
demarcated. Frequent skirmishes are a regular feature in
the Bengal borderland nowadays. One observer has rightly
pointed out .Cyril Radcliffs sloppy surgery which has left
behind our subcontinent as a mangled body is still held
sacrosanct by the rulers of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Will they ever be exorcise the ghost of colonialism?
6. Life in the Bengal Border
The Boundary Commission
Paul Muldoon
You remember that village where the border ran
Down the middle of the street,
With the butcher and baker in different states?
Today he remarked how a shower of rain
Had stopped so cleanly across Golightly's lane
It might have been a wall of glass
That had toppled over. He stood there, for ages,
To wonder which side, if any, he should be on.
The life and culture of the people living in the borderlands
is getting more and more scholarly attention nowadays.
The newly drawn border disrupted the day to day life of the
people living in the border areas. It separated the peasants
homestead from the plot he had sharecropped in the last
session and the peasant-proprietor from his holding. It cut
creditors off from debtors; landlords from tenants. The
Partition badly disrupted the channels of communication
which had developed through centuries. It separated the
markets from the surrounding villages on which they were
dependent.
Thus, the people living in the border took up smuggling as
their survival strategy. Partition, though an event more
than half a century old, is still a grotesque reality in the
border zone.
Conclusion
The boundary making process in Bengal and its
consequences reveals some very interesting features.
Boundary making is a delicate and specialized task which
requires sufficient time and technical knowledge to make it
a success. That huge task was done in this case in a hurried
manner which had no parallel in history. It has already
been shown that neither Radcliffe nor his colleagues had
any previous experience of boundary making process. The
Chairman and all the members of the Commission were
lawyers. It was just another legal battle to them. The 2:2
ratio of the Commission created a deadlock and the final
decisions were taken by Radcliffe who was totally ignorant
about the subcontinent. Joya Chatterji has rightly
criticized the use of the surgical metaphor behind the act of
partition. Surgery produces pain, but it has a remedial
effect. Moreover it is undertaken by a specialist. The
Partition was neither done by a specialist nor did it have
any remedial effect. It only produced pain and rapture and
the people involved are still going through it. A lengthier
and more transparent boundary making process might
have served as a sort of anesthetic effect in this process.
Older Posts
Radcliffe himself was probably aware of what damage he
had done to the subcontinent. He honestly confessed to his
son: ..Nobody in India will love me for the award about
the Punjab and Bengal and there will be roughly 80 million
people with a grievance who will begin looking for me.
However, even the most carefully crafted border is not
altogether free from defects. So it is not enough to criticize
the working of the Commission on particular grounds. We
can reasonably question the very idea of Partition as a
viable means of conflict resolution. The Partition did not
end the communal problem in the subcontinent. Rather it
created so many new problems. The overall strenuous
relationship between the three successor states, recurrent
border clashes, trans-border migration, smuggling,
terrorism, dispute over river water sharing, problems of the
minorities ---all these developments indicate that the
Partition is too costly a solution of communal problem. The
high level politicians conceived it, the lawyers of the
Commission drafted it, and the bureaucrats implemented it
without bothering about its consequences for the common
people. They had to pay the high price of Independence.
They were sacrificed for the sake of the formation of the
nation states in the subcontinent. The people on both sides
of the border, in turn, openly violate the logic of the nation-
state in their day to day life. This is the greatest fallacy of
the Partition.
Endnotes
Posted by Tridib Santapa Kundu at Saturday, August 16, 2008
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