Background

“ ... There is much in the Musalmans which, if they wish, can roll them into a nation. But isn't there enough that is common to both Hindus and Muslims, which if developed, is capable of moulding them into one people? Nobody can deny that there are many modes, manners, rites and customs which are common to both. Nobody can deny that there are rites, customs and usages based on religion which do divide Hindus and Musalmans. The question is, which of these should be emphasized ...”

–Pakistan: the Heart of Asia by Liaquat Ali Khan (1940)

Every country is characterized by hybridity. The Land of the Golden Bird is no exception. There is no doubt that India is one of the most heterogeneous nations, with people belonging to different communities and speaking various languages. It is very difficult to determine who the original inhabitants were. The history of India began with life in the Indus river valley, and unfolded with numerous invasions. This resulted in India’s diverse nature. The 20th century, however, witnessed tensions between two major sects of the country- Hindu and Muslim.

In 1885, the Hindu-dominated Indian National Congress (INC) convened for the first time.

When the British attempted to divide the state of Bengal in 1905, the INC led huge protests against the plan. This sparked the formation of the Muslim League, which sought to guarantee the rights of the Muslim minority in any future independence negotiations.

Although the Muslim League formed in opposition to the INC, and the British colonial government attempted to play the INC and Muslim League off one another, the two political parties generally cooperated in their mutual goal of getting Britain to "Quit India." Both the INC and the Muslim League supported sending Indian volunteer troops to fight on Britain's behalf in World War I in exchange for the service of more than 1 million Indian soldiers, the people of India expected political concessions up to and including independence. However, after the war, Britain offered no such concessions.

In April of 1919, a unit of the British Army went to Amritsar, in the Punjab, to silence pro-independence unrest. The unit's commander ordered his men to open fire on the unarmed crowd, killing more than 1,000 protesters. When word of the Amritsar Massacre spread around India, hundreds of thousands of formerly apolitical people became supporters of the INC and Muslim League.

World War II sparked a crisis in relations between the British, the INC and the Muslim League. The British expected India once again to provide much-needed soldiers and materiel for the war effort, but the INC opposed sending Indians to fight and die in Britain's war. After the betrayal following World War I, the INC saw no benefit for India in such a sacrifice. The Muslim League, however, decided to back Britain's call for volunteers, in an effort to curry British favour in support of a Muslim nation in post-independence northern India.

Initially, the goals of the Muslim league were-

1. To protect and advance the political rights and interests of the Muslims of India and to respectfully represent their needs and aspirations to the government.
2. Toavoidhostilitytowardsothercommunitiesbypromotingunderstanding between the Muslim community and other Indians.

However, in 1940, while Jawaharlal Nehru of the INC called for a unified India, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, leader of the Muslim League, called for the birth of a new state for Muslims. He propagated the Two-Nation Theory, an ideology that primary identity and unifying denominator of Muslims in the Indian subcontinent is their religion, rather than their language or ethnicity, and therefore Indian Hindus and Muslims are two distinct nations, regardless of ethnic or other commonalities. This theory was a founding principle of the Pakistan movement (religious political movement in the 1940s that aimed to create the country of Pakistan) and the Partition of India in 1947. 

As independence neared, the country began to descend towards a sectarian civil war.

In February of 1947, the British government announced that India would be granted independence by June 1948. Viceroy for India Lord Louis Mountbatten pleaded with the Hindu and Muslim leadership to agree to form a united country, but they could not. Only Gandhi supported Mountbatten's position. With the country descending further into chaos, Mountbatten reluctantly agreed to the formation of two separate states and moved the independence date up to August 15, 1947. Although Gandhi implored the Indian people to unite in peaceful opposition to British rule, the Muslim League sponsored a "Direct Action Day" on August 16, 1946, which resulted in the deaths of more than 4,000 Hindus and Sikhs in Calcutta (Kolkata).

The effects of a call for the observance of Direct Action Day, which started with the massacre of Hindus at Calcutta, created a state of civil war in India. Jinnah gave a battle cry “Lekar rahenge Pakistan, Larke lenge Pakistan” (we will take Pakistan, we will take Pakistan). He also declared, “This day we bid good-bye to constitutional methods. (...) Today we have also forged a pistol and are in a position to use it.”

When Lord Mountbatten landed in India the situation had already reached the state of anarchy and Partition seemed the only solution to the problem of India. Even the Congress, which stood for the unity of India, compromised with the situation, and the leaders were tired and fed up with the state of affairs. They were caught between the fury of Direct Action Day and the time limit fixed by the British Government. It was a great period of transition. The British, who had lost interest in the administration, ignored the maintenance of law and order. The choice before the leaders was between Partition and the continuation of the impasse. Finally, the proposal calling for Partition was accepted.

Around this time, Lord Mountbatten succeeded Lord Wavell as the Viceroy. Further, Atlee’s government gave June 1948 as the deadline for the transfer of power to India.

With the decision in favour of partition made, the parties next faced the nearly impossible task of fixing a border between the new states. The Muslims occupied two main regions in the north on opposite sides of the country, separated by a majority Hindu section. In addition, throughout most of northern India members of the two religions were mixed together - not to mention populations of Sikhs, Christians, and other minority faiths. The Sikhs campaigned for a nation of their own, but their appeal was denied.

A boundary commission was set up under the chairmanship of Cyril Radcliff to decide the geographic territory of both the countries. He had never visited India before, and was hence chosen to lead the commission as he was to be neutral between the two parties. This however, also meant that he wasn’t familiar with the peoples and had no basis to create the divide. On top of that, he was only given five weeks to decide the fate of 390 million people.

People scrambled to get onto the "right" side of the border or were driven from their homes by their erstwhile neighbours. At least 10 million people fled north or south, depending on their faith, and more than 500,000 were killed in the melee. Trains full of refugees were set upon by militants from both sides, and all the passengers massacred.

On August 14, 1947, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan was founded. The following day, the Republic of India was established to its east.