Partition of India: Forgotten Story

[Sir Lancelot]

That's fair enough, I think.

There should really have been an army presence to facilitate the vast movement of people. Even in the final week people didn't know whether they were going to be living in India or Pakistan which added to the tensions. Partition really could have been managed better but on the other hand this happens all of the time in history. An invading force keeps a lid on internal problems which fester and break out spectacularly when the invaders leave.

We weren't an invading force per se. Unless you count a few thousand administrators as an army. Even the British military forces that were in India were vastly outnumbered by the Indian troops and private princely armies.

Countries we didn't colonise have managed quite nicely actually. I expect India would have modernised in some form and who knows what they may have added free from the European formula. Japan did OK and they too were a country of feudalism until the 20th century

I think that Nagasaki and Hiroshima might have made some difference there like.

 

[JonMc]

We weren't an invading force per se. Unless you count a few thousand administrators as an army. Even the British military forces that were in India were vastly outnumbered by the Indian troops and private princely armies.

Well that's just the way we operated our Empire - on the illusion of trade, we'd rock up telling the locals what was what and as soon as they has 'issues' we'd send in a ship with guns attached to 'protect our trading interests'. Next thing you know there's a conversation...

Local - 'What's that new big house being built?'
Soldier - 'Oh, that's the Governor's house.'
Local - 'What's a governor?'

We took slavery to an industrial level on that principal in the West Indies.

We never really invaded anywhere. We were good at that.

 

[Sir Lancelot]

Some thoughts from spending the day at the Partition Museum and Archive, Jallianwalabagh, and the Indian/Pakistan border:


We had 6+ years to prepare for leaving India and we did absolutely no planning for it. There were no contingencies, no strategies. Nothing. It was as if the entire Empire with all of it’s powers had lived in denial that it would ever end. The lack of planning was criminally incompetent. The nation which performed such miracles at Dunkirk and D-Day sloped it’s shoulders and failed to act when faced with a human tragedy. This is a national disgrace.


Mountbatten made some massive mistakes. His mandate from Atlee allowed him to set a leave date anywhere up to December 1948. He chose to go much earlier - August 47 because he thought it was the most peaceful option. This was a huge strategic blunder. Radcliffe probably could have come up with a set of borders that were less destructive, but he was given weeks, not months to do his job. The decision to go fast played right into the hands of the partitionists, who were able to force Britains hand with reckless demands, and undermined the more sensible voices


Gandhi made some huge mistakes too. The Quit India movement achieved nothing, and left Gandhi under house arrest and Nehru in prison for 2 crucial years. While they were locked away Jinnah strengthened his position and Bose massed troops on the Japanese border. When they came out from jail Nehru had lost 2 years to Jinnah


The British still had senior troops on the ground during the slaughter. The Indian and Pakistan armies had hardly any senior officers, and large numbers of British Generals and Majors stayed on. The letters from British Army Officers asking for authority to intervene in the growing slaughter or to dispense humanitarian relief are heart breaking.


Ultimately it would have been possible to establish a humanitarian corridor between Lahore and Amritsar with food and water drops along the way, with British, Indian and Pakistani senior officers guaranteeing the movement (these had been the same people only days before). Our failure to act was utterly criminal.

Jallianwalabagh was a crime against humanity and should be recorded as such.

You forget something. During the previous six years Britain was fighting for its own existence. Promises were made to India for independence if they supported the war effort. There was no beneficial reason for Britain to delay independence, and there was no desire in India for us to remain there.

It's easy to give it the could have, should have routine from the comfort of your armchair and armed with the benefit of 100% hindsight, but those who were there on the ground at that time didn't have that luxury and basically did their best to please everyone. That it backfired dreadfully is as much to do with the Indians as it was to do with the British. No civilised person would have expected the behaviour displayed during partition. It is a shameful event in the history of the subcontinent.

 

[Skandhaless]

We weren't an invading force per se. Unless you count a few thousand administrators as an army. Even the British military forces that were in India were vastly outnumbered by the Indian troops and private princely armies.



I think that Nagasaki and Hiroshima might have made some difference there like.

Japan was a highly cultured, industrialised and civilised nation well able to expand its borders long before hiroshma.. But obviously something like that will "make some difference"

 

[JonMc]

You forget something. During the previous six years Britain was fighting for its own existence. Promises were made to India for independence if they supported the war effort. There was no beneficial reason for Britain to delay independence, and there was no desire in India for us to remain there.

It's easy to give it the could have, should have routine from the comfort of your armchair and armed with the benefit of 100% hindsight, but those who were there on the ground at that time didn't have that luxury and basically did their best to please everyone. That it backfired dreadfully is as much to do with the Indians as it was to do with the British. No civilised person would have expected the behaviour displayed during partition. It is a shameful event in the history of the subcontinent.

Nnnngghhaaarrgghhh...
Yes, I see what you're saying but we did have a responsibility as the ruling force. You've read an account of local administrators crying out for help but none was forthcoming. It was ham fisted - that's the very best that could be said of it, but that ham fistedness had consequences.

 

[Sir Lancelot]

Japan was a highly cultured, industrialised and civilised nation well able to expand its borders long before hiroshma.. But obviously something like that will "make some difference"

Japan is and was, a hugely different country to India though, on every level.

Nnnngghhaaarrgghhh...
Yes, I see what you're saying but we did have a responsibility as the ruling force. You've read an account of local administrators crying out for help but none was forthcoming. It was ham fisted - that's the very best that could be said of it, but that ham fistedness hadconsequences.

At every time in India the Indian portion of the army was made up of native soldiers, who vastly outnumbered the British soldiers. Are you seriously suggesting that they were incapable of dealing with the crisis unless the British were ordering them about what to do and how to conduct themselves? By that time most of the Indian army officers had been educated to similar levels as British officers and should have been capable of dealing with the problem themselves.

And I must say, that Independence means Independence. Any attempt by Britain to try to take over at that stage would most likely have resulted in Indians from both sides turning on the British. India wanted Independence, they got it, and it was up to them to progress from there dealing with any problems that occurred. I don't see how we could have got involved at that point without exacerbating the whole situation.

 

[Skandhaless]

Japan is and was, a hugely different country to India though, on every level.

Quite, but largely feudal, agrarian and ruled by faction until the late 19th century and made a fast and successful modernisation free from external imperial influence. Countries don't intrinsically need western steer.

 

[JonMc]

Japan is and was, a hugely different country to India though, on every level.



At every time in India the Indian portion of the army was made up of native soldiers, who vastly outnumbered the British soldiers. Are you seriously suggesting that they were incapable of dealing with the crisis unless the British were ordering them about what to do and how to conduct themselves? By that time most of the Indian army officers had been educated to similar levels as British officers and should have been capable of dealing with the problem themselves.

And I must say, that Independence means Independence. Any attempt by Britain to try to take over at that stage would most likely have resulted in Indians from both sides turning on the British. India wanted Independence, they got it, and it was up to them to progress from there dealing with any problems that occurred. I don't see how we could have got involved at that point without exacerbating the whole situation.

Two weeks before the partition no one even knew where the border was going to be man. Including us apparently.

 

[Sir Lancelot]

Two weeks before the partition no one even knew where the border was going to be man. Including us apparently.

Only because they wouldn't agree where the border should be. There were three other parties to the decision, not just Britain. It should have been a two second decision really if Britain could have just said, here, here and here. That's the border.

 

[JonMc]

Only because they wouldn't agree where the border should be. There were three other parties to the decision, not just Britain. It should have been a two second decision really if Britain could have just said, here, here and here. That's the border.

Yes, you have to take in all considerations - you're quite right, but I don't think that even by the standards of the day that you could call that a glorious withdrawal. I've described it as ham fisted, I stand by that. Imo we didn't do enough to facilitate the move.

 

[Sir Lancelot]

Yes, you have to take in all considerations - you're quite right, but I don't think that even by the standards of the day that you could call that a glorious withdrawal. I've described it as ham fisted, I stand by that. Imo we didn't do enough to facilitate the move.

Did it have to be a glorious withdrawal? Remember that we didn't choose to leave, we were effectively blackmailed into leaving, as India said they wouldn't support us in the war if we didn't give them independence. As soon as the war ended they were agitating for us to leave while we were still trying to deal with the effects of the war.

I'm sure that if there had been nothing else of importance going on then we would have spent more time establishing mutually acceptable borders, but between the pressure from India for us to leave, and the problems that we were dealing with at home, I can't see what more could have been done.

 

[Lankester Merrin]

You forget something. During the previous six years Britain was fighting for its own existence. Promises were made to India for independence if they supported the war effort. There was no beneficial reason for Britain to delay independence, and there was no desire in India for us to remain there.

It's easy to give it the could have, should have routine from the comfort of your armchair and armed with the benefit of 100% hindsight, but those who were there on the ground at that time didn't have that luxury and basically did their best to please everyone. That it backfired dreadfully is as much to do with the Indians as it was to do with the British. No civilised person would have expected the behaviour displayed during partition. It is a shameful event in the history of the subcontinent.

I am afraid that is yet another variety of excuse. I am shocked at the number of people who find it just too tough to admit the obvious.

During that 6 year period Britain had 1200 Senior Civil Servants in India, and 4,000 less senior ones, in addition to a much larger number of Indian administrators. They weren't involved in the war effort. There was plenty of capacity there to do planning, to work out how to leave.

Not only that but from Jallianwalabagh it must have been obvious that Independence was a matter of when not if. We weren't fighting a world war for all of the time now where we?

We were in charge. We made the decisions. And we made a massive mess of it. We need to stop making excuses for our own failure.

I note your rather weasely words about "civilised people", but I won't rise to it.

 

[mickb2112]

Amritsar.

Didn`t the newspaper that eventually became the Telegraph raise an equivalent of £1m to the commander who ordered that massacre as a thank you for saving India !!??

I agree we need to stop being softies about our past. I think we need to acknowledge that without the Empire the world would not be anything like it is. It was brutal, avaricious and not very pc but the propelled the world into the modern era.

We need to see a balanced view the good and the bad, unfortunately up until recently we got the air brushed view. We shouldn`t hide away from the bad side. How would we react if the Germans or Japanese version of their histories omitted the "bad" parts? As a country we made some incredible contributions to the development of the human race which should be celebrated but we also made some dreadful ones, some which we are still paying the price for now that we shouldn`t hide away from.

One thing that I always found ironic is that we fought two world wars for "freedom and democracy" while simultaneously denying that very idealogy to a fair few countries around the world as did several other major countries of the time.

 

[Harry Angstrom]

We need to see a balanced view the good and the bad, unfortunately up until recently we got the air brushed view. We shouldn`t hide away from the bad side. How would we react if the Germans or Japanese version of their histories omitted the "bad" parts? As a country we made some incredible contributions to the development of the human race which should be celebrated but we also made some dreadful ones, some which we are still paying the price for now that we shouldn`t hide away from.

One thing that I always found ironic is that we fought two world wars for "freedom and democracy" while simultaneously denying that very idealogy to a fair few countries around the world as did several other major countries of the time.

The Japanese do omit the bad bits. I think the gunge how nationalist view of the past is no longer relevant but neither is viewing the actions of people at the time through modern eyes.

 

[Sir Lancelot]

I am afraid that is yet another variety of excuse. I am shocked at the number of people who find it just too tough to admit the obvious.

During that 6 year period Britain had 1200 Senior Civil Servants in India, and 4,000 less senior ones, in addition to a much larger number of Indian administrators. They weren't involved in the war effort. There was plenty of capacity there to do planning, to work out how to leave.

Not only that but from Jallianwalabagh it must have been obvious that Independence was a matter of when not if. We weren't fighting a world war for all of the time now where we?

We were in charge. We made the decisions. And we made a massive mess of it. We need to stop making excuses for our own failure.

I note your rather weasely words about "civilised people", but I won't rise to it.

Okay let's the blame the British for all of the evilness carried out by Indians. None of them bear any personal responsibility for their actions, it was the British that made them do it. Right?

 

[Lankester Merrin]

Okay let's the blame the British for all of the evilness carried out by Indians. None of them bear any personal responsibility for their actions, it was the British that made them do it. Right?

When did we become such a nation of softies?

Thin skinned, neurotic, hypersensitive? Unable to take criticism, unable to accept that we might have made mistakes? Ready to take offence at any suggestion that we might have been less than perfect at all times? Bunch of twisty faced whingers to scared to confront the bad things we might have done in the past?

What a hopeless lot we have become.

 

[Big Duke Six]

I agree we need to stop being softies about our past. I think we need to acknowledge that without the Empire the world would not be anything like it is. It was brutal, avaricious and not very pc but the propelled the world into the modern era.

Its still brutal.

 

[Sir Lancelot]

When did we become such a nation of softies?

Thin skinned, neurotic, hypersensitive? Unable to take criticism, unable to accept that we might have made mistakes? Ready to take offence at any suggestion that we might have been less than perfect at all times? Bunch of twisty faced whingers to scared to confront the bad things we might have done in the past?

What a hopeless lot we have become.

I agree. The Indians shouldn't keep blaming others for their own failures!

 

[Harry Angstrom]

Its still brutal.

We don't have an Empire anymore.

 

[Invictus]

India wanted independence from Britain which was agreed and was to take place after the war. Britain wanted to leave a united India but the Indian factions wouldn't agree to this hence partition. From what I've read no one was forced to move however huge numbers did due to the strong religious beliefs of the Indian population.
This resulted in what you would describe as ethnic cleansing by sections of the Indian population.
Now I agree that there should have been a longer timetable for British withdrawal but the Indian factions were pushing for the British to leave.
I don't think the British are blameless however the Indian people themselves have a lot to answer for.