My family sits on the partition fence. Dad and Mum were born in the same year in the same neighbourhood in Old Delhi, in the shadow of the Red Fort. In 1947, Dad's family managed to fly over the border to Sialkot, thus avoiding the slaughter in Punjab between Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs.

At this time, Mum's family were living a comfortable middle-class existence in the university town of Aligarh. Mum's dad taught undergraduate philosophy, geography and a few other subjects.

So Dad is Pakistani and Mum is Indian, despite both being born in the same year in the same neighbourhood.

Now for a really tough question - what on earth am I? Perhaps this week, marking the 60th anniversary of the partition of India, would be a good time to revisit this question.

I've been thinking about this for some time now. I was born in Karachi, but was bundled onto a cruise liner bound for Sydney after barely five weeks. Growing up in John Howard's electorate, I was surrounded by family friends, virtually all of whom were South Asian _ Hindus, Sikhs, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, even a Pakistani Anglican priest.

Mum and all the "aunties" wore saris or shalwar kameez. They always wore red to weddings, and had henna art painted on their hands. The men, especially the medical doctors, wore flared pants or safari suits and showed off their flash cars.

At age six, I spent seven months in Pakistan and forgot English. I re-learned it after spending six months at school in New Jersey. Then I returned to Howard's electorate and was teased for my brown skin, my strange name and my New Jersey accent.

It wasn't until I reached double figures that the difference between a Sikh and a Muslim became apparent to me. One day I was at one of those South Asian Sunday lunches where everyone rocks up at 4pm (“Indian standard time”) for what turns into dinner. Our host, a Sikh doctor-uncle offered me a glass of Coke. I refused.

“Why don't you want Coke? You always used to like it,” Dr Uncle asked.

“I'm sick, uncle.”

“No, you're not, son. You're Muslim!” Dr Uncle replied, setting all the other uncles and my Dad into fits of laughter. I thought they were laughing at me and walked away in tears.

Dad could tell I didn't get the joke. He then explained to me in simple language how Sikhs and Muslims differed. Sikh religious uncles grow beards and wear turbans like religious Muslim uncles. Sikh aunties wear the same loose clothes as my Mum did. Sikhs worship the same God, speak the same language and eat the same food. Sikh religious songs sound like Sufi Muslim qawwali songs.

After saying all this, Dad expected me to believe Sikhs and Muslims are different. I had good reason to be sceptical.

Guru Nanak (the founder of the Sikh faith, although regarded by many Indian Muslims as a Sufi saint) performed the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca at least once.

Sadly Sikhs often suffer abuse due to misdeeds of fanatics claiming to act in the name of Islam. Following the September 11 attacks, the first victim of a reprisal hate-crime was Balbir Singh Sodhi, an American Sikh who was planting flowers at the family-owned petrol station in Arizona. The killer told police he thought Balbir was a Muslim.

Sixty years ago Sikhs and Muslims massacred each other in the months leading up to and following partition. My uncles, both Indian and Pakistani, tell stories of trains arriving at Lahore and Amritsar filling the air with the stench of death, carriages turned into communal coffins filled with innocent Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs massacred by religious militants.

But were all these deaths caused by militants? Or were they caused by innocent people manipulated by militants spreading rumours? Or by survivors of massacres who saw family members massacred and raped and burnt alive before their eyes? Who knows? My uncles certainly had no idea who started all the madness. But they did want me to know that it happened. And that members of all communities suffered.

Pakistan was a nation carved out on the basis of ethno-religious identity. Its founder and first governor-general, Mohammad Ali Jinnah - known as Quaid-i-Azam or “Great Leader” - was a Bombay barrister who made his fortune representing the wealthy in London.

India's founders were no less elite. Professor Raj Mohan Gandhi has just released a biography of his saintly grandfather, known to us as the “Mahatma” (or “great soul”), detailing among other things his troubled family life.

Pakistan was established to protect Muslims from being an oppressed minority. Muslims were told by Pakistan's founders that they were a nation separate to the rest of India. I never saw much evidence of that growing up.

Dad still talks about how his father dreamed of returning to Delhi. I'm sure he wasn't the only one whose memories transcended politics.

This week, the near-futility of partition was on display in the Bombay High Court, where lawyers for the daughter of Pakistan's founder argued for her father's palatial Bombay residence (now Indian state property) be returned to the family. Among the evidence presented will no doubt be a statement Jinnah made to the Indian high commissioner in 1948.

“Tell your Prime Minister not to break my heart by taking over my Bombay residence. You know well how much I love Bombay. I hope to return there someday.”

Even after achieving Partition, Jinnah couldn't erase his very human emotions by referring to lines he insisted be drawn on a map.

Wah Wah. I must congratulate you for a very decent, heart felt story. No matter what people will have to say, YOU are an INDIAN! There is no such a race as pakistani. As you rightly pointed out how the partition was decided. Nameley, Religion!!
Well, those muslims who stayed behind in India are much better off than those in Pakistan. I am not going to write an essay here as everyone knows that India is the largest democracy in the world.
Yes, discrimination will exist all over the world. However, we are all responsible for our destinity. Knowledge is power and in this modern world if you are left behind that's it.
I know of may people from Pakistan who are not proud of their country.
Thanks for a lovely article.
cheers

While well intentioned, I am afraid this article does not take into account certain basic facts of partition:

1. Mahomed Ali Jinnah was the only politician in the subcontinent to be called the Best Ambassador of Hindu Muslim Unity for 30 years of his career. He tried longer than any other Indian Muslim politician to keep India and Indians together. At the end he was the most reluctant of partitionists.

2. Till 1946 Jinnah still tried to come to an arrangement with the Congress Party on the basis of the Cabinet Mission Plan which would have kept India together but it was the Congress ultimately vetoed the Cabinet Mission Plan because it did not satisfy their centralising concerns.

3. I am afraid it is not ok to claim that Jinnah made a fortune represent the wealthy in London. Jinnah's fortune came from hard work ... he was a thoroughly self made man who rose to the level of the elite because of his extraordinary legal ability. To top it all of Jinnah has a legislative career spanning three decades in which he fought for the rights of women, depressed classes and minorities.

4. Jinnah's vision of Pakistan-India relations was clearly one of porous borders and free trade. He expressed this vision on several occasions. You should read Khushwant Singh's views on the Muslim League's demand for Pakistan to see that Jinnah atleast did not envisage the kind of hostility that exists between Pakistan and India today.

5. The gentleman who commented above is also wrong when he makes blanket claims. The biggest beneficiaries of partition of India are people like myself whose families were living in areas that form Pakistan today. Before Pakistan came along this region was a raw-material producing "martial" region. Muslims of this region especially were employed mainly in agriculture and the army. Pakistan's creation changed all that. Muslims of this region were forced to take up professions that were till then considered the exclusive domain of the Non-Muslims. Furthermore.. this region which had a single industrial unit in 1947 ... and 1/10th the number of Industrial workers actually saw an industrial revolution only because of the creation of Pakistan.

Whatever Pakistan's failings... it today has a bourgeoisie that is trying to hold its own in a globalised world... had there been no Pakistan, this region would be a remote part of the Indian republic.
Why Pakistan has not reached its potential has very different and much more concrete reasons than abusing this man or that man...

The Muslim bourgeoisie i.e. Salariat behind the creation of Pakistan belonged entirely to the Hindustan regions and had no real roots in indigenous Pakistan. Those who had roots in the regions of Punjab and Sindh etc were mostly feudals. Thus the feudals and the army in collusion with the civil bureaucracy found it really easy to over throw the bourgeoisie ... in 1954 and then the army assumed command in 1958.

Why were feudals stronger in Punjab etc... had its roots in the British theory of Martial and Non-martial regions... whereby the British ruled Punjab with consensus of the feudals who were given a free rein ... and the democratic and bourgeoisie institutions of Bengal and rest of India just did not take root here for a long time. How are you going to blame this on Jinnah or his party League which struggled as much against the Unionist Party in the 1940s as Congress had (against the Unionist Party) in the 1930s...

Pakistan thus was faced not just with general Muslim backwardness (because of their preference for either soldiery or farming) but also the fact that the regions that constituted Pakistan were industrially a half century behind the rest of India.... Pakistan's creation in fact has provided that impetus and fire required to create a modern industrial economy and a bourgeoisie...

As for democracy in Pakistan... I think its time has now come and not even the greatest army can stop the march of an idea whose time has come.

As a Pakistani- born and raised in Pakistan- then frankly I am quite insulted by some of the assertions here. All nation states are born out of conflict. If after 60 years, people are still going to question something that is my identity ... then is it any wonder that Pakistanis react the way they do?

PARTITION OF INDIA

I was 14 years old when the Partition of India took place and my parents were on the Pakistan side before moving to India side. My father was in education department and he knew the subject of religion. He stopped many attacks and enmities based upon religious selves. It was the hypocrisies of the British and the Indian leaders that caused the division and bloodshed.

We Indians of the farming tribes served the British Army faithfully but the British colluded with the people of business tribes and hypocritically divided our homeland leading us into the sectarian riots and bloodshed that could be avoided.

India is the land of many tribes and she is our motherland. We lived together peacefully and supported the British in the two world wars. Jatts, Pathans, Marhatta, are a few marshal tribes worth mentioning. Now, our tribal homelands are divided on sectarian basis and when we fight with each other, the West shopkeepers sell their arms into our poverty and misery. For example, the Punjab, Rajasthan, U.P., etc are the homes of the people of Jatt tribe, one of the best soldiers in the British Army and now we are ready to fight against each other under the sectarian banners of Sikh, Hindu and Muslim.

Religion brings in peace but when the sons of Satan, the hypocrites lead the masses, and then it leads people to the bloodiest of all wars. If you remember that Jesus condemned hypocrisy the most as it originates from one’s heart than the moral sins, then you would understand the fruit of evil spirit or hypocrisy that became prevalent during the partition of India.

British were supposed to be the staunch supporters of democracy and they always send their representatives all over the world to see that the elections are fair and the flag of democracy is upheld.

But the British handed over the reigns of our country to the Congress Party dominated by the business tribes, Baniya, Khatri, Bhatia, etc. of India under the banner of Hindus and to the Muslim League also dominated by the counterpart business tribes, Sheikh, Bhatia, Arian, etc. under the banner of Muslims. Lala Mohandass Karamchand Gandhi, a Baniya by tribe represented the business tribes on one side and Lala Mohammad Ali Jinnah, a Babla Bhatia, the business tribes on the other side. There was a third person in the name of Lala Tara Singh Malhotra Khatri who came under the banner of Sikhs.

All such people were the representatives of their political organisations and none of them represented the general public as it is done in the democratically held elections. In other words, the British did not hold General Elections to pass on the powers to the democratically elected members of the Parliament but to their well-groomed stooges to create chaos and bloodshed in the country through sectarian riots. The British supported their stooges financially and unduly favoured the heads of different religious sects, so as to support the sectarian divisions among the people.

In a nutshell, the British encouraged the sectarian leaders to create chaos so that they could apply their “Divide and Rule” Policy to hold on to their Indian Empire. The clever business tribal people, who fought least during the Wars, benefited most from their policy whilst the simpleton village tribal people who fought bravely during the wars suffered the greatest of all. In fact, the British like the clever shopkeepers treated the sincere village people like the X-mass pets deserting them into the hands of clever shopkeepers of India to let us suffer.

But every cloud has a silver lining. The demarcation of India, especially of the Punjab is right between the two great towns, Amritsar, where this holiest of Holy Temple Harmandir Sahib is present and Lahore, the capital of the Punjab where the crooks of the highest calibre live. Remember that the Holiest of Holy Temple, which used to be in Jerusalem and destroyed in 70 A.D., is the Hospital for the spiritually sick dishonest people for cleansing their hearts with His Word. Harmandir became corrupt when the Owner of this House, Satguru (Christ) Tegh Bahadur Ji visited the Place but He was refused the entry into it and He was turned away. Satguru Tegh Bahadur Ji rightly cursed the town of Amritsar by Saying: -

“AMRITSARIYAE ANDAR SARRIYAE”

That is the people of Amritsar are dirty-hearted people and this is apparent by the corrupt practices run at this Temple that are worst than those run at Jerusalem Temple. What God has to do with gold? Thus, we have dirty-hearted people on the both sides of the border and their destruction is inevitable. Destruction of the other towns would follow the general pattern, more dishonest people more the destruction.

Kashmir used to be the land of the most learned Brahmins nicknamed as “Guru Brahmins”, who in this Dark Age become Guru sons of Satan. No wonder the Sarsuts and Khatris of Kashmir on becoming Mohammedans committed the greatest of all heinous atrocities that Satguru Tegh Bahadur Ji had to lay his sacrifice to these satanic people. So, the British left Kashmir as the Bone of Contention between India and Pakistan so that both of them could tear Kashmir apart.

Remember that the Mullahs from Kashmir went all over the Middle East, Russia and Europe to create havoc among the people. Allah being Spirit, there are neither the beautiful girls, HOORIS nor any heaven up there but rather you enjoy Peace of Mind in Allah. Further, He is free of any moral laws or SHARIAH Laws and if someone binds you in the name of God or Allah, then he is a son of Satan. That is, Islam of Allah is SHARIAH-FREE.

So, the British hypocritically divided our Motherland and that hypocrisy would definitely bear fruit as the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is not forgiven.

Time of bearing this Fruit could not be assigned definitely but the year 2012 could be the possible time for the fierce fighting between the two countries.

The Punjab is the homeland of the most foolish people of Jatt tribe, whom our tribal elders characterised in sayings such as: -

JAATRRA SAE KAATRRA APNA HI GHAR GHALAE SAE.

People of Jatt tribe are in nature like the male buffaloes, which like fighting with each other. This would happen during the Indo-Pak war when the foolish Jatts from both sides would kill each other. Jatts are also well known for their generosity too.

Another saying: -

KOKARR (Chicken) KAN (Crows) KAMBO (A tribe) KABILA PAALDAE (Look after their young ones);
JATT MAEHAN (Jatt like the male buffalo) SANSAAR (Worldwide) KABILA GHAALDAE (Destroy each other).

Ch. Rajinder Nijjhar, M.Sc.
Retired Senior Lecturer in Metallurgy,
Jatt of the United Greater Punjab

HOLY SPIRIT (COMMON SENSE) SHATTERS
THE FETTERS OF THE LETTERS (HOLY BOOKS)

SCRIPTURES + HOLY SPIRIT = GOSPEL

A person is a Virgin when he is led by his "innerman", the christ.

http://www.nijjhar.freeserve.co.uk/sikhism.htm

Hi,

The three Lalas, the shopkeepers destroyed our country but what happened was a noose around their own necks.

These three Lalas were Lala Gandhi, a Baniyia, the world's greatest hypocrite, Lala Tara Singh Malhotra Khatri, the youger hypocrite and Lala Mohd. Ali Jinah, a Babla Bhatia, another hypocrite. These three Lalas did not allow the British to hold elections in case they lose their grips on the reigns of India and the village people come into power as Chaudhry Chhotu Ram did.

This created Kashmir, a grinding mill for the sons of Satan Khatris and Sarsuts turned Mullahs who created havoc in the past and killed Christ Tegh Bahadur Ji. For more visit my web site.

This is possibly the best article I have read on this site. At the end of the day, we are all human. Its sad that indian chauvinists like munna with their shallow sloganism learn nothing from history.
I don't find it surprising that wherever the European colonizers went, they brought death, destruction and division.

Also, I did not know that the founder of Sikh religion had performed the pilgrimage to Mecca. Is there a book or website you would recommend for more information?

Thanks

Hi,

My knowledge is very simple and logical. Things went wrong long times ago in the first century when the bishops became greedy.

You may visit my web site for details:-

http://www.nijjhar.freeserve.co.uk/sikhism.htm

We should leave the last word on India and Pakistan to the brilliant William Dalrymple who wrote in the Guardian on 14th August:


"On the ground, of course, the reality is different and first-time visitors to Pakistan are almost always surprised by the country's visible prosperity.There is far less poverty on show in Pakistan than in India, fewer beggars, and much less desperation. In many ways the infrastructure of Pakistan is much more advanced: there are better roads and airports, and more reliable electricity. Middle-class Pakistani houses are often bigger and better appointed than their equivalents in India.

Moreover, the Pakistani economy is undergoing a construction and consumer boom similar to India's, with growth rates of 7%, and what is currently the fastest-rising stock market in Asia. You can see the effects everywhere: in new shopping centres and restaurant complexes, in the hoardings for the latest laptops and iPods, in the cranes and building sites, in the endless stores selling mobile phones: in 2003 the country had fewer than three million cellphone users; today there are almost 50 million.

Hi,

Do not think of economic progress but the religious understanding as it would bring in destruction of all that was gained.

India has a Khatri Prime Minister and now Pakistan need s a Khatri from Kashmir to warm up for the ultimate War in 2012.

Kalyug belongs to Khatris as Traeta belonged to them when they were Angelic (Devta) people.

The CNN-IBN Pakistan and India polls are out.. (State of the nation polls)

In this context Jinnah got an approval rating of 97% in Pakistan and 43% in India.

Gandhi got an approval rating 29% in Pakistan and 85% in India.

Indira wanted to conquer Pakistan back in 1971, arguing with Nixon that historically it was an integral part of the country. Nixon's not only opposed it, but moved part of the Seventh Fleet from the Pacific into the Bay of Bengal. Indira had to be satisfied with liberating East Pakistan from Lahore's troops via Indian proxies.

Should the United States have behaved differently and allowed Pakistan to be conquered?

Hi,

There will be a full fledged war between the two countries that would destroy both as predicted. This Partition was a tool to Justice. Kashmiri sons of Satan are suffering and so the Khatris of Lahore called Sheikh and of Amritsar.

Solomon2,

I believe you got your history tad bit wrong. India was not interested in conquering East Pakistan - it would not have been against Indias interest to do so. East Paksistanis/Bangladeshis revolted when they were not given power after a fair and square election and after West Pakistanis started killing them by the droves. India indirectly helped the exiled Bangladesh government from the very start on their soil. What got Indian army directly involved was the amount of refugees pouring across the Indian border causing all sorts of problem and they wanted to end war sooner than later. Indian troops defeated the Pakistani army in a matter of 10 days on Bangladesh soil. So, no 7th fleet did not stop Indira from sending her troops in. India did not start the war, but they finished it.

Arshad Khan, there is no conflict between our two accounts, though I had forgotten about the direct intervention of the Indian Army. Indira only wanted to conquer directly West Pakistan. The impression she created in D.C. was that India would have been satisfied with Indian-supported proxies biting off East Pakistan until India was ready to digest Bangladesh sometime in the future.

I agree the 7th fleet did nothing to prevent the liberation of Bangladesh. But Henry Kissinger, whose memoirs I'm drawing on for this account, believed the action warned Indira that she couldn't go as far as she wanted to. So Indian troops eventually withdrew from Bangladesh, and there was no more talk of conquering West Pakistan.

Hi,

The beauty of Partition that God created to punish the anti-Islamic people is that Kashmir is the epicentre of the sons of Satan and now they are punished. Lahore and Amritsar have satanic Khatris and they would be dealth with during Indo-Pak War expected in 2012.

People who have not forgotten their tribal identity shall survive.