People’s history of Partition

Inventing Boundaries—Gender, Politics and the Partition of India Edited by Mushirul Hasan Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2000 ISBN: 019 565103 0

Pakistan came into being not simply because of Muslim communalism.

More than half a century after the single most violent and traumatic event in Indian history, the wounds of Partition are yet to fully heal. Much has been written about Partition and the events preceding and following it. Yet, as Mushirul Hasan notes in his prologue to this book, almost all the literature available on the subject deals with the realm of high politics, of the protracted, and ultimately futile, negotiations between the Congress, the Muslim League and the British. What is missing from most accounts of Partition are the voices of ordinary people whose fates were decided by politicians in Delhi, Shimla and London. This book seeks to draw out these ignored, marginalised voices, to illustrate the meanings of the Partition event for those common people affected by it, and to portray the element of immense human suffering that it brought in its trail.

In his introduction to the volume, Hasan writes that the commonplace perception of Partition as simply an outcome of Muslim communalism needs to be debunked. Like the Hindus and, indeed, all other communities, the Muslims of India were (are) not one homogenous whole. They were divided on the lines of caste, ethnicity, sect, region as well as social class, and thus exhibited a considerable diversity in terms of political positions and views. It would clearly be fallacious to take the Muslim League's "two -nation" theory as having been acceptable to all Muslims.