In the ultimate challenge to India’s secular credentials, Hindu youths clamber onto the domes of Ayodhya’s Babri mosque. Five hours later the mosque lay in ruins, and the most serious sectarian massacres since Partition swept the country.
Smoke and pigeons billow from the famous Taj Mahal Hotel in Bombay (Mumbai) when in November 2008 the city was terrorised by jihadist gunmen from Pakistan. Some 164 people, mostly civilians, died in a succession of attacks on high-profile targets.
A section of the Golden Quadrilateral under construction near Kanpur in UP. A multi-lane highway, the Quadrilateral links Delhi to the renamed cities of Kolkata (Calcutta), Chennai (Madras), Bengaluru (Bangalore), Pune (Poona) and Mumbai (Bombay).
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman shortly before his assassination in 1975. Known as ‘Banglabandhu’, Mujib is revered as the founder of Bangladesh, although his rule proved short and contentious.
‘I belong to the sweat and sorrow of this land. I have an eternal bond with the people which armies cannot break.’ Zulfikar Ali Bhutto addresses his followers shortly before Ziaul Haq’s coup that led to his arrest, doubtful conviction and execution.
As Chief Martial Law Administrator and President of Pakistan from 1977 to 1988, General Ziaul Haq lent substance to Pakistan’s claim to be an Islamic state. He died in a still unexplained plane crash.
Benazir Bhutto, the daughter of Z.A. Bhutto, inherited her father’s leadership of the Pakistan People’s Party and was elected Prime Minister in 1988 and 1993. Seeking a third term, she was assassinated in 2007.
As leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BHP), Atul Behari Vajpayee led a National Democratic Alliance as Prime Minister of India from 1997 to 2003.
Notes
Introduction
1. Van Schendel, Willem, ‘Stateless in South Asia: The Making of the India–Bangladesh Enclaves’ in Journal of Asian Studies, Vol 61, No 1 (Feb 2002), pp.115–47
2. Chatterjee, Shib Shankar, 10 Jan 2009 www.assamchronicle.com/mode/142
3. Hindustan Times, 31 Jan 2010
4. Baruah, Sanjib, Durable Disorder: Understanding the Politics of Northeast India, OUP, p.5
5. Kaku Iralu to National Seminar on Resolving Ethnic Conflicts, Guwahati, 2002, quoted in Glancey, Jonathan, Nagaland: A Journey to India’s Forgotten Frontier, Faber, London 2011, pp.96–7
6. Van Schendel, Willem, The Bengal Borderland: Beyond State and Nation in South Asia, Anthem, London 2005, p.4
7. Chatterji, Joya, ‘The Fashioning of a Frontier: The Radcliffe Line and Bengal’s Border Landscape’ in Modern Asian Studies, 33, I, CUP, Cambridge 1999
8. Sinha-Kerkhoff, Kathinka, The Tyranny of Partition: Hindus in Bangladesh and Muslims in India, Gyan, New Delhi 2006, p.135
Chapter 1 – Casting the Die
1. Mansergh, Nicholas and Penderel Moon (eds), The Transfer of Power, Vol VII, ‘The Cabinet Mission 23 March–29 June 1946’, pp.582–5
2. Peck, Lucy, Delhi: A Thousand Years of Building, p.274
3. Moore, R.J., Escape From Empire: The Attlee Government and the Indian Problem, p.78
4. Mansergh and Moon, op. cit., pp.598–9
5. Azad, Maulana Abul Kalam, India Wins Freedom: The Complete Version, pp.164–5
6. Jinnah, quoted in Moon, Penderel, Divide and Quit, p.57
7. People’s Age, 26 Aug 1946, reproduced in Sumit Sarkar (ed.), Towards Freedom: Documents on the Movement for Independence in India,1946, part 1, pp.676–80
8. Dalton, D.G., ‘Gandhi During Partition’, in Philips, C.H. and D. Wainwright (eds), The Partition of India: Policies and Perspectives 1935–47, pp.227–30
9. Darling, Malcolm Lyall, At Freedom’s Door, p.55
10. Sarkar (ed.), Towards Freedom, pp.423–4
11. Darling, op. cit., pp.56–7
12. Ibid., p.86
13. Ibid., p.302
14. Ibid., pp.76–7
15. Mayaram, Shail, Resisting Regimes: Myth, Memory and the Shaping of a Muslim Identity
16. Darling, op. cit., pp.11, 22
17. Ibid., p.200
18. Mayaram, op. cit., pp.172–5
19. Copland, Ian, The Princes of India in the Endgame of Empire, 1917–1947, p.354
20. Ibid., p.8
Chapter 2 – Counting the Cost
1. See especially Jalal, Ayesha, The Sole Spokesman, CUP 1985
2. Nehru, J., ‘Speech on the Granting of Independence, 14 August 1947’, reprinted in Brian MacArthur, The Penguin Book of Twentieth Century Speeches, London 1992, pp.234–7
3. Jinnah, M.A., ‘Presidential Address to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan’, 11 Aug 1947, reproduced in Dawn, ‘Independence Day Supplement’, 14 Aug 1999
4. Osman, John, ‘The Viceroy’s Verdict’, letter to The Spectator, 4 Sept 2004
5. Jalal, Ayesha, The Sole Spokesman, p.292
6. Quoted in Chopra, Subhash, Partition, Jihad and Peace: South Asia After Bin Laden, 2009, p.166
7. Nehru, J., Selected Works (2), Vol 2, p.140, quoted in von Tunzelmann, A., Indian Summer, p.165
8. Jalal, Ayesha, The Sole Spokesman, pp.292–3
9. Moon, Penderel, Divide and Quit, pp.114–15
10. Quoted in Collins, L. and D. Lapierre, Freedom at Midnight, p.278
11. Von Tunzelmann, A., Indian Summer, p.209
12. Aiyar, Swarna, ‘“August Anarchy”: The Partition Massacres in Punjab, 1947’ in Low, D.A. and Howard Brasted (eds), Freedom, Trauma, Continuities: Northern India and Independence, pp.18–19
13. Moon, Divide and Quit, p.116
14. Ibid., pp.110–11
15. Khan, Yasmin, The Great Partition, p.129
16. Moon, Divide and Quit, pp.134–5
17. Khan, Yasmin, The Great Partition, p.131
18. Moon, Divide and Quit, p.248
19. Pandey, Gyanendra, Remembering Partition, p.36
20. Moon, Divide and Quit, pp.269, 233
21. Pandey, Gyanendra, ‘India and Pakistan, 1947–2002’ in Economic and Political Weekly, 16 Mar 2002, p.8
22. Symonds, Richard, In the Margins of Independence: A Relief Worker in India and Pakistan (1942–1949), pp.52, 56
24. Tuker, Francis, While Memory Serves, p.121
25. Ibid., p.415
26. Ayub Khan, Mohammad, Friends Not Masters: A Political Biography, p.22
27. Quoted in Chatterji, Joya, The Spoils of Partition, p.130, fn 71
28. Roy, Renuka, ‘And Still They Come’ in The Trauma and the Triumph: Gender and Partition in Eastern India, ed. Jasodhara Bagchi and Subhoranjan Dasgupta, pp.80–1
29. Zinkin, Taya, Reporting India, p.47
30. Khan, Yasmin, The Great Partition, p.130
31. Zakir Hussain, quoted in ibid., p.144
32. Symonds, Richard, op. cit., p.34
33. Ibid., pp.33–4
34. Kudaisya, Gyanesh, ‘Divided Landscapes, Fragmented Identities: East Bengal Refugees and their Rehabilitation in India, 1947–79’ in Low, D.A. and Howard Brasted (eds), Freedom, Trauma, Continuities, p.114
35. Ibid., p.122
Chapter 3 – Who Has Not Heard of the Vale of Cashmere?
1. Copland, Ian, ‘The Integration of the Princely States: A Bloodless Revolution’ in Low, D.A. and Howard Brasted, Freedom, Trauma, Continuities, p.154
2. Ziegler, Philip, Mountbatten: The Official Biography, p.410
3. Guha, Ramachandra, India After Gandhi: The History of the World’s Largest Democracy, p.42
4. Quoted in Ziegler, op. cit., p.445
5. Quoted in ibid., p.409
6. Keay, John, India: A History (2010 edn), p.512
7. Lamb, Alastair, Incomplete Partition: The Genesis of the Kashmir Dispute 1947–8, pp.98, 101
8. Nehru, letter to Sri Prakasa, 25 Nov 1947, quoted in Brown, Judith M., Nehru: A Political Life, p.178
9. Symonds, Richard, In the Marg
ins of Independence, p.68
10. Schofield, Victoria, Kashmir in Conflict: India, Pakistan and the Unfinished War, p.41
11. Lamb, Alastair, Incomplete Partition, pp.130–1
12. Quoted in Whitehead, Andrew, A Mission in Kashmir, p.102
13. See especially Lamb, Alastair, op. cit., pp.150–60
14. Schofield, Victoria, op. cit., p.60
15. Ziegler, Philip, op. cit., p.446
16. Trench, Charles Chenevix, The Frontier Scouts, pp.275–6
17. Lamb, Alastair, Incomplete Partition, p.194
18. Quoted in ibid., p.202
19. Ibid., p.227
20. Quoted in Schofield, Victoria, op. cit., p.68
21. Quoted in Chandra, Bipan, Mridula Mukherjee and Aditya Mukherjee, India After Independence 1947–2000, p.79
22. Whitehead, Andrew, A Mission in Kashmir, p.208
Chapter 4 – Past Conditional
1. Shaikh, Farzana, Making Sense of Pakistan, p.5
2. Mazar Ali Khan, interviewed in 1988
3. Keay, John, India: A History, p.519
4. Shaikh, Farzana, Making Sense, p.6
5. Ibid., pp. 8,12
6. Malik, Iftikhar H., State and Civil Society in Pakistan, p.27
7. Keay, op. cit., p.539
8. Zinkin, Taya, Reporting India, p.29
9. Ibid., p.37
10. Jalal, Ayesha, The State of Martial Rule, p.159
11. Keay, op. cit., pp.541–2
12. Ayub Khan, M., Friends Not Masters, p.52
13. Ibid., p.54
14. Cohen, Stephen Philip, The Idea of Pakistan, p.60
15. Keay, op. cit., p.544
16. Cohen, Stephen Philip, op. cit., p.2
17. Ibid., p.296
18. Guha, Ramachandra, India After Gandhi, p.103
19. Quoted in ibid., p.103
20. Khilnani, The Idea of India, p.37
21. Guha, op. cit., p.273
22. Keay, op. cit., p.527
23. Kothari, Rajni, Politics in India, p.114
24. Chandra, Bipan et al., India After Independence 1947–2000, pp.348–9
25. Zinkin, Taya, op. cit., p.150
26. Ibid., p.167
27. Ibid., p.171
Chapter 5 – Reality Check
1. Quoted in Avedon, In Exile from the Land of Snows, p.36
2. Myrdal, Gunnar, Asian Drama: An Enquiry into the Poverty of Nations, p.185
3. Maxwell, Neville, India’s China War, p.104
4. Times of India, 31 Aug 1959, quoted in ibid., p.111
5. Prime Minister on Sino–Indian Relations, quoted in ibid., p.118
6. Ibid., p.340
7. Guha, Ramachandra, India After Gandhi, p.332
8. Naipaul, V.S., An Area of Darkness, p.248
9. Ibid.
10. Ayub Khan, M., Friends Not Masters, p.128
11. Schofield, Victoria, Kashmir in Conflict, p.102
12. Ziring, L., Pakistan in the Twentieth Century, pp.280–1
13. Ballard, Roger, ‘Kashmir Crisis; View from Mirpur’ in Economic and Political Weekly, Vol 26, 9/10, 2–9 Mar 1991
14. Ibid.
15. Keay, op. cit., p.545
16. Ziring, Pakistan in the Twentieth Century, p.254
17. Talbot, Ian, Pakistan: A Modern History, p.161
18. Quoted in Ziring, p.281
19. Talbot, Ian, op. cit., p.179
Chapter 6 – Power to the People
1. Naipaul, V.S., An Area of Darkness, p.266
2. Frank, Katherine, Indira: The Life of Indira Nehru Gandhi, p.324
3. Quoted in Guha, Ramachandra, India After Gandhi, pp.416–17
4. Segal, Ronald, The Crisis of India, p.14
5. Keay, op. cit., p.551
6. P.N. Haksar, quoted in Guha, p.437
7. Khilnani, S., The Idea of India, p.48
8. Ziring, Pakistan in the Twentieth Century, p.308
9. Jahan, Rounaq, Pakistan: Failure in National Integration, pp.168–9
10. Ziring, L., Bangladesh: From Mujib to Ershad, p.50
11. Jones, Owen Bennett, Pakistan: Eye of the Storm, p.152
12. Bhutto, Z.A., The Myth of Independence, pp.180–1
13. Ziring, Pakistan in the Twentieth Century, p.329
14. Keay, op. cit., p.555
15. Mascarenhas, A., The Rape of Bangladesh, p.91
16. Imam, Jahanara, Of Blood and Fire: The Untold Story of Bangladesh’s War of Independence, quoted in Van Schendel, Willem, A History of Bangladesh, p.163
17. Sisson, Richard and L.E. Rose, War and Secession: Pakistan, India and the Creation of Bangladesh, pp.148, 152
18. Ibid., pp.189–90
19. Frank, Katherine, Indira, pp.335–6
20. Sisson and Rose, passim
21. A.M. Malik to Yahya Khan, 7–9 Dec 1971, quoted in Ali, S. Mahmud, Understanding Bangladesh, Hurst, London 2010, pp.85–6
Chapter 7 – An Ill-Starred Conjunction
1. Ziring, L., Bangladesh, p.94
2. Ibid., p.83
3. Van Schendel, A History of Bangladesh, p.178
4. Lewis, David, Bangladesh: Politics, Economy and Civil Society, p.80
5. Quoted in Lifschultz, Lawrence, Bangladesh: The Unfinished Revolution, p.141
6. Ziring, Bangladesh, pp.102–3
7. Ziring, Pakistan in the Twentieth Century, p.377
8. Ahsan, Aitzaz, The Indus Saga and the Making of Pakistan, p.xv
9. Ibid., p.136
10. Talbot, Ian, Pakistan: A Modern History, p.229
11. Ibid., p.224
12. Quoted in Perkovich, George, India’s Nuclear Bomb: The Impact on Global Proliferation, p.108, quoted in O.B. Jones, p.338
13. Bhutto, Z.A., If I am Assassinated …, p.137
14. Ibid., p.25
15. Cohen, S.P., The Idea of Pakistan, p.140
16. Durrani, Tehmina, My Feudal Lord, pp.6–7
17. Bhutto, If I am Assassinated …, p.193
18. Durrani, My Feudal Lord, p.243
19. Jagdish Bhagwati, quoted in Guha, R., India After Gandhi, p.469
20. Ibid., p.473
21. Datta-Ray, Sunanda K., Smash and Grab: Annexation of Sikkim, p.71
22. Ibid., p.73
23. Ibid., p.149
24. Singh, Amar Kaur Jasbir, Himalayan Triangle, p.271
25. Datta-Ray, p.230
26. ‘A Merger is Arranged’ in Hindustan Times, 10 Apr 1975, quoted in ibid., p.309
27. Singh, Himalayan Triangle, p.276
28. Quoted in Moraes, Dom, Indira Gandhi, p.220
29. Quoted in Wolpert, S., Zulfi Bhutto of Pakistan, p.254
30. Naipaul, V.S., India: A Wounded Civilization, p.134
31. Frank, Katherine, Indira, p.389
32. Ibid., p.406
Chapter 8 –Two-Way Tickets, Double Standards
1. Naipaul, V.S., India: A Wounded Civilization, p.140
2. La Brack, Bruce, ‘The New Patrons: Sikhs Overseas’ in Barrier, N. Gerald and V.A. Dusenberry, The Sikh Diaspora: Migration and the Experience Beyond Punjab, p.263
3. Kazi, Shahnaz, ‘The Domestic Impact of Overseas Migration: Pakistan’ in Amjad, Rashid (ed.), To the Gulf and Back: Studies on the Economic Impact of Asian Labour Migration, pp.181–2
4. Ibid., pp.193–4
5. Nair, Gopinath, ‘Incidence, Impact and Implications of Migration to the Middle East from Kerala’ in To the Gulf and Back, op. cit., p.344
6. Helweg, Arthur W., ‘Sikh Politics in India; The Emigrant Factor’ in Barrier and Dusenberry, op. cit., p.310
7. Akbar, M.J., India: The Siege Within, p.103
8. Helweg, A., op. cit., p.309
9. Keay, op. cit., p.589
10. Jaffrelot, Christophe, The Hindu Nationalist Movement and Indian Politics, pp.255–81
11. Chandra, Bipan et al., India After Independence, p.260
12. Guha, Ramachandra, India After Gandhi, p.527
13. Chandra et al., India After Independence, p.262
14. Guha, India After Gandhi, p.548
15. Chandra et al., India After Independence, p.266
16. Jaffrelot, Christophe, The Hindu Nationalist Movement and Indian Politics, p.330
17. De Silva, K.M., Sri Lanka’s Troubled Inheritance, p.228
18. Wickramasinghe, Nira, Sri Lanka in the Modern Age, p.272
19. Ibid., p.279
20. Quoted in ibid., p.280
21. De Silva, p.247
22. Bullion, Alan J., India, Sri Lanka and the Tamil Crisis 1976–1994: An International Perspective, p.51
23. Wickramasinghe, p.287
24. De Silva, p.253
25. Bullion, pp.50–1
26. Quoted in ibid., p.53
Chapter 9 – Things Fall Apart
1. Hazarika, Sanjoy, Rites of Passage: Border Crossings, Imagined Homelands. India’s East and Bangladesh, p.29
2. Hussain, Wasbir, ‘Bangladeshi Migrants in India; Towards a Practical Solution – A View from the North-Eastern Frontier’ in Missing Boundaries: Refugees, Migrants, Stateless and Internally Displaced Persons in South Asia, ed. Chari, P.R. et al., p.128
3. Hazarika, op. cit., p.31
4. Rehman, Teresa, ‘Nellie Revisited: The Horror’s Nagging Shadow’ in Tehelka, 30 Sep 2006
5. Helweg, Arthur W., op. cit., p.317
6. Tully, Mark and Satish Jacob, Amritsar: Mrs Gandhi’s Last Battle, p.58
7. Ibid., p.71
8. Ibid., p.91
9. Chandra, Bipan et al., India After Independence, p.334
10. Tully and Jacob, p.194
11. Quoted in Frank, Katherine, Indira, pp.487, 490
12. Guha, Ramachandra, India After Gandhi, p.570
13. Helweg, Arthur W., ‘Sikh Politics in India; The Emigrant Factor’ in The Sikh Diaspora, Barrier and Dusenberry (eds), p.318
14. Guha, Ramachandra, p.571
15. Keay, op. cit., p.580
16. Singh, Tavleen, Kashmir, a Tragedy of Errors, p.98, quoted in Schofield, Victoria, p.136
17. Ganguly, Sumit, Conflict Unending: India–Pakistan Tensions Since 1947, p.90