Remembering Partition: Beyond the History We Inherited

As we watch films about Partition, I think we owe the people who lived through 1947 something more than a convenient version of history.

We owe them remembrance.

Perhaps the most humane way to remember Partition is to acknowledge that there was not one set of victims. There were Hindu families who were massacred in the areas that became Pakistan. There were Sikh families who suffered the same fate. There were also Muslims who were killed, driven from their homes and subjected to terrible violence in East Punjab and elsewhere.

Millions survived—but lost their homes, their communities and often members of their families. Women were abducted and subjected to unimaginable violence. Children were separated from their parents. Entire villages and neighbourhoods disappeared.

This was not an ordinary episode of communal tension. It was a human catastrophe.

What Does the Historical Evidence Tell Us?

With Main Wapas Aaunga bringing the trauma of Partition back into public discussion, perhaps it is time to look beyond the stories we have inherited and ask what the historical evidence actually tells us about the people who suffered in 1947.

The answer is uncomfortable because it does not fit neatly into the narratives we sometimes inherit.

Historian Ishtiaq Ahmed, in The Punjab Bloodied, Partitioned and Cleansed, published by Oxford University Press, examined British archival material, official records and extensive eyewitness testimony. His research estimates that roughly 500,000–800,000 people were killed in Punjab during Partition and argues that the number of Muslims killed in East Punjab was greater than the number of Hindus and Sikhs killed in West Punjab combined.

That does not diminish the suffering of Hindu and Sikh refugees.

Their suffering was real. Their massacres were real. Their displacement was real.

It simply means that if we want to remember Partition honestly, we cannot remember only the suffering of the community with which we identify.

There is also contemporary evidence pointing to the enormous scale of Muslim suffering in East Punjab. Jawaharlal Nehru's correspondence with Mahatma Gandhi in August 1947 contains an assessment that, at that stage of the violence, Muslim deaths in East Punjab were roughly twice those of Hindus and Sikhs in West Punjab.

These historical claims deserve to be examined, challenged where necessary and placed in their proper context—not turned into slogans or used as ammunition in today's political arguments.

And Then There Is Gandhi

Whatever one's opinion of Gandhi's politics, it is difficult to reconcile the historical record with the simple description of him as someone who was merely "kind to Muslims."

Gandhi repeatedly spoke and acted against communal violence, including violence committed by Hindus and Sikhs against Muslims.

In Delhi in January 1948, during his final fast, one of his central demands was that Muslims should be able to live safely in the city and that communal violence against them should end.

That does not mean Gandhi was always right.

It does not mean the Congress was free from mistakes or failures during Partition.

It does not erase the suffering of Hindu and Sikh refugees.

And it certainly does not absolve the Muslim League, communal organisations, militias or individuals who participated in massacres and atrocities against Hindus and Sikhs.

But perhaps that is precisely the lesson of Partition.

We Don't Have to Choose Between Victims

Ordinary human beings suffered because political and communal identities became more important than human life.

A Muslim victim does not become less deserving of remembrance because a Hindu was also murdered.

A Hindu or Sikh victim does not become less deserving of remembrance because Muslims were also massacred.

We don't have to choose between them.

We can remember them all.

That is not "both-sidesism." It is simply refusing to erase victims because their suffering complicates the story we prefer to tell.

Partition was not a morality play in which one entire religion was innocent and another entire religion was guilty. It was a human tragedy in which millions of ordinary people paid the price for political decisions, communal mobilisation, fear, revenge and violence.

This does not require us to pretend that every group, organisation or individual committed the same crimes, or that every part of the subcontinent experienced Partition in the same way. The historical record is far more complicated than that.

But complexity should not frighten us. It should make us more careful about what we claim to know.

What Should We Teach the Next Generation?

If a new generation is going to learn about 1947 through cinema, let us give them something more than a story designed to confirm what they already believe.

Let us give them the courage to look at the evidence.

And the humanity to remember every victim.

Remember the massacres.

Remember the refugees.

Remember the women who disappeared.

Remember the families who never found each other again.

Remember the homes that were abandoned forever.

But above all, remember that behind every statistic was a human being.

The tragedy of Partition cannot be reduced to a competition over which community suffered more. Nor should acknowledging the suffering of one community be interpreted as denying the suffering of another.

We can condemn the massacres of Hindus and Sikhs in the areas that became Pakistan while also acknowledging the mass killing and displacement of Muslims in East Punjab.

We can remember the suffering of Muslim refugees without diminishing the suffering of Hindu and Sikh refugees.

We can examine Gandhi's actions without turning him into either a saint or a villain.

And we can examine the failures of political leaders and organisations without assigning collective guilt to entire religions.

That is what honest remembrance requires.

History should not be manufactured to fit today's politics.

It should be studied, questioned and remembered—so that tomorrow's politics does not repeat its worst mistakes.

Sources for Further Reading

- Ishtiaq Ahmed, The Punjab Bloodied, Partitioned and Cleansed, Oxford University Press.

- Contemporary correspondence between Jawaharlal Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi, August 1947.

- Gandhi's Delhi Diary and records of his January 1948 fast.

- Academic research on Partition-era violence, displacement and refugee movements in Punjab and Delhi.