WEBVTT - The Lead-Up & The Radcliffe Line / How is Partition Taught In Schools? 0:00:01.960 --> 0:00:09.400 Warning. The following episode contains stories of extreme violence. Have 0:00:09.560 --> 0:00:11.680 you ever walked the streets of a city or town 0:00:11.880 --> 0:00:14.360 the day after a parade or some other large event 0:00:14.400 --> 0:00:17.560 took place. You may see a cleanup crew or an 0:00:17.560 --> 0:00:21.880 overflowing trash can, maybe some stray balloons, no matter how 0:00:21.960 --> 0:00:24.680 joyous the occasion may have been. The next day, those 0:00:24.720 --> 0:00:27.639 areas tend to look a little apocalyptic, but you know 0:00:27.680 --> 0:00:31.360 they'll be as good as new in no time. Now, 0:00:31.800 --> 0:00:36.519 imagine this scenario, but instead of remnants of confetti and decorations, 0:00:36.960 --> 0:00:40.280 the streets are littered with corpses and blood is heavily 0:00:40.360 --> 0:00:43.800 drenched in the soil. Last week, you heard me talk 0:00:43.840 --> 0:00:46.239 a little bit about what happened when the people of 0:00:46.320 --> 0:00:48.960 India found out their country was going to be divided. 0:00:49.440 --> 0:00:52.280 But what about some of the events that took place 0:00:52.479 --> 0:00:56.760 before that? Many communal fights and riots broke out, most 0:00:56.800 --> 0:01:01.560 notably on August seventeenth, ninety six, a day known as 0:01:01.600 --> 0:01:06.000 Direct Action Day. What started out as a pressure tactic 0:01:06.080 --> 0:01:11.600 against the British ended up in absolute carnage. From I 0:01:11.760 --> 0:01:16.240 Heart Radio, I'm Nehasis and this is partition a podcast 0:01:16.240 --> 0:01:18.680 that will take a closer look into this often forgotten 0:01:18.720 --> 0:01:24.760 part of history. The idea behind Direct Action Day, an 0:01:24.800 --> 0:01:27.520 event that took place exactly a year before the boundary 0:01:27.520 --> 0:01:30.959 line was announced, came from Mohammad Ali Jinna, the future 0:01:30.959 --> 0:01:34.960 founder of Pakistan. Jinna wanted to ensure the British knew 0:01:35.040 --> 0:01:37.760 that the Muslim League wanted a separate country and the 0:01:37.800 --> 0:01:41.320 transfer of power took place. He called for all Muslims 0:01:41.360 --> 0:01:44.960 to close their shops and take part in demonstrations. However, 0:01:45.440 --> 0:01:48.680 it was never quite clear what those demonstrations should be, 0:01:49.120 --> 0:01:55.000 and in the end, massive looting and destruction transpired. Author 0:01:55.040 --> 0:02:00.080 Nasidha Jari paints the grewsome picture in Midnight's Furies m 0:02:00.280 --> 0:02:06.840 hm m h. None the Law first noticed something was 0:02:06.880 --> 0:02:09.519 wrong when the cows sleeping in the middle of the 0:02:09.639 --> 0:02:12.600 road struggled to their feet to avoid an early morning 0:02:12.639 --> 0:02:16.760 street car. The normally packed tram that clanged past was 0:02:16.880 --> 0:02:22.400 completely empty. Nobody was heading to work instead. A half 0:02:22.480 --> 0:02:26.520 dozen trucks followed, filled with angry bearded men carrying brick 0:02:26.560 --> 0:02:31.000 bats and bottles. For a moment, None the Law watched, 0:02:31.440 --> 0:02:35.400 frozen in place as the thugs piled out and ransacked 0:02:35.480 --> 0:02:38.840 a nearby furniture store owned by a Hindu like himself. 0:02:40.080 --> 0:02:43.560 They tossed mattresses and chairs into the street and set 0:02:43.600 --> 0:02:47.600 them on fire. Then a hill of stones came pelting 0:02:47.680 --> 0:02:55.280 up the road towards him. Law turned and left. The 0:02:55.360 --> 0:02:58.040 violence seemed to have subsided by the evening, but when 0:02:58.080 --> 0:03:04.560 the clock struck midnight, a different story unfolded. Gangs of 0:03:04.639 --> 0:03:09.440 killers materialized, wielding machetes, torches, and even revolvers and shotguns 0:03:10.160 --> 0:03:13.639 with ruthless efficiency, they hunted down members of the opposite community. 0:03:14.240 --> 0:03:17.320 Where a lane of Muslim shanties crossed through a Hindu area, 0:03:17.840 --> 0:03:21.120 or a few threadbare hovels inhabited by Hindu families sat 0:03:21.160 --> 0:03:24.720 amid a sea of Muslim homes, the shrieking mobs woke 0:03:24.800 --> 0:03:28.639 the inhabitants, slaughtered them and set their cramped, flimsy huts alight. 0:03:29.480 --> 0:03:32.720 The scale of the slaughter only became apparent in the daylight. 0:03:33.639 --> 0:03:38.520 Hundreds of corpses littered the streets on Saturday morning, seventeen August, 0:03:39.320 --> 0:03:43.280 and photographs they looked like mannikins, near naked and beginning 0:03:43.280 --> 0:03:48.360 to bloat, Their limbs tangled like rope. It was a 0:03:48.480 --> 0:03:52.120 kill or be killed situation. It wasn't just the Gunda's 0:03:52.360 --> 0:03:55.560 or low level criminals who are wreaking havoc, but regular 0:03:55.600 --> 0:04:01.920 citizens as well. One horrified Britain recounted how his butcher 0:04:02.040 --> 0:04:05.440 had sliced up his order before calmly striding across the 0:04:05.480 --> 0:04:08.720 street and using the same knife to slip the throat 0:04:08.760 --> 0:04:14.640 of a Hindu passersby. These days of bloodshed have another 0:04:14.720 --> 0:04:20.440 name as well, the Great Calcutta Killings. Negotiation after negotiation 0:04:20.520 --> 0:04:24.520 took place, different iterations of plans took place, and when 0:04:24.560 --> 0:04:26.440 it looked like progress was at the end of a 0:04:26.480 --> 0:04:29.560 long and winding road, it quickly dissolved as soon as 0:04:29.600 --> 0:04:32.760 it appeared. Jenna felt as though he was being ignored 0:04:33.000 --> 0:04:34.720 and that no one was listening to the wants and 0:04:34.800 --> 0:04:37.600 needs of the people who wanted a Muslim majority dominion 0:04:38.640 --> 0:04:43.000 Neary wanted to ensure that India wouldn't disintegrate. To shed 0:04:43.040 --> 0:04:46.000 more perspective on these riots and other aspects of partition, 0:04:46.320 --> 0:04:49.280 I spoke to David Gilmartin, a professor from North Carolina 0:04:49.360 --> 0:04:56.560 State University, to understand direct Action Day. There's a really 0:04:56.600 --> 0:05:02.440 important act to this and to Jenna's calling for protests 0:05:02.440 --> 0:05:05.480 on that day. I mean, I think it's very important 0:05:05.560 --> 0:05:09.720 to stress that Jenna did not call for open violence 0:05:09.800 --> 0:05:14.600 on this, but there are questions about the relative responsibility 0:05:14.640 --> 0:05:18.479 of different groups for the violence that broke out, and 0:05:18.760 --> 0:05:23.160 one could certainly say, you know, Jenna is not completely 0:05:23.320 --> 0:05:26.520 free from a case that there were certain things that 0:05:26.600 --> 0:05:29.880 he did which may have contributed to the violence. But again, 0:05:29.880 --> 0:05:33.440 what I want to stress is the backdrop to this 0:05:34.520 --> 0:05:41.840 had to do with the failure of the last major effort, 0:05:42.520 --> 0:05:48.279 through negotiations by the British and by the Indian National 0:05:48.400 --> 0:05:53.560 Congress and by the Muslim League, to produce a plan 0:05:53.800 --> 0:06:00.440 for India's independence which would keep India united as a 0:06:00.480 --> 0:06:06.120 single country and avoid a partition between two separate countries. 0:06:07.800 --> 0:06:10.120 After all my research, I kept coming back to the 0:06:10.160 --> 0:06:14.159 same conclusion. The whims and personal agendas of men constantly 0:06:14.200 --> 0:06:17.000 got in the way when creating a well thought out solution. 0:06:17.600 --> 0:06:21.840 I asked David what he thought about this. It's one 0:06:21.880 --> 0:06:25.640 of these questions that one can argue about. But I 0:06:26.040 --> 0:06:28.440 know this is a wishy washy answer, but I come 0:06:28.440 --> 0:06:31.039 back to it kind of yes and no, because there's 0:06:31.080 --> 0:06:36.600 no doubt that individual politicians had their own agendas, and 0:06:36.680 --> 0:06:40.599 in the riots in Calcutta, that's really clear. So I mean, 0:06:40.640 --> 0:06:43.800 a lot of the argument about that particular riot that 0:06:43.839 --> 0:06:46.960 followed Direct Action Day has to do with the role 0:06:47.040 --> 0:06:52.240 that was played by HS suro Worthy. So who was 0:06:52.320 --> 0:06:58.880 Hussaint Sahed sugar Worthy, the Chief Minister of Bengal under 0:06:58.880 --> 0:07:02.680 the Muslim League. And again there's a lot of controversy 0:07:02.680 --> 0:07:08.080 about this. You know, whether he restrained the police from 0:07:08.120 --> 0:07:11.520 moving in earlier to try to control the violence. Some 0:07:11.560 --> 0:07:14.920 people say yes, but that's contested. Some people say no, 0:07:15.280 --> 0:07:18.800 that he didn't. But one thing is very clear, quite 0:07:18.840 --> 0:07:23.960 apart from conflict with Hindus, Sarti was a Muslim leader 0:07:24.000 --> 0:07:29.240 in Bengal whose political base was in cal cut and 0:07:29.600 --> 0:07:34.120 the partition of Bengal while it was a negative thing 0:07:34.200 --> 0:07:38.640 one could say for many Bengali Muslims and Hindus alike, 0:07:39.520 --> 0:07:43.280 but for Sarroarty the partition of Bengal would have been 0:07:43.760 --> 0:07:47.560 political suicide. And in fact, in a certain sense it 0:07:47.720 --> 0:07:53.640 was because he had no significant political base in East Bengal, 0:07:54.000 --> 0:07:58.200 the part that ultimately went to bucket Stan. I tried 0:07:58.320 --> 0:08:00.680 very hard not to roll my eyes as David was 0:08:00.720 --> 0:08:04.960 telling me this, and I did not succeed in this task. 0:08:05.440 --> 0:08:08.240 I literally had to interject when he was speaking to 0:08:08.360 --> 0:08:11.440 Note that my iy roll was not directed towards him, 0:08:11.440 --> 0:08:17.480 but the incredibly frustrating information I was hearing. So he 0:08:17.560 --> 0:08:23.520 continued as a prominent politician, but actually largely by shifting 0:08:23.680 --> 0:08:28.040 his focus to the national level, to the Pakistani level. 0:08:28.280 --> 0:08:31.280 So there isn't any doubt he had his own agenda 0:08:31.560 --> 0:08:34.320 in this. But the other part of your question is 0:08:34.760 --> 0:08:39.880 can one explain what happened by this? Well? Maybe, but 0:08:40.720 --> 0:08:44.360 had there not been a leader like Sir Worthy, it's 0:08:44.440 --> 0:08:47.520 not clear that exactly the same thing wouldn't have happened, 0:08:47.559 --> 0:08:51.600 because there were very significant underlying questions that go beyond 0:08:51.880 --> 0:08:58.960 his particular agenda. I then asked where was everyone? Jenna 0:08:59.040 --> 0:09:02.280 and a Route were not physically in Calcutta, But what 0:09:02.320 --> 0:09:05.400 about the police? Why did this unrest go on for 0:09:05.440 --> 0:09:10.760 as long as it did. The question about the role 0:09:10.880 --> 0:09:15.520 of the police and the army is in part tied 0:09:15.600 --> 0:09:18.640 to the kinds of things you're implying in your question 0:09:18.720 --> 0:09:22.440 that a lot of these political leaders had their own 0:09:22.559 --> 0:09:27.400 goals but were in a certain way not ready to 0:09:27.720 --> 0:09:32.400 sacrifice those or sacrificed their own standing to to take 0:09:32.400 --> 0:09:37.280 an active role in trying to stop the violence. I 0:09:37.320 --> 0:09:40.360 am not naive. I understand the demand to be a 0:09:40.400 --> 0:09:44.560 politician and the complexities of having a difficult job, but 0:09:44.679 --> 0:09:48.320 behaviors like the ones David mentioned truly have me scratching 0:09:48.360 --> 0:09:52.480 my head. Is the death of our people worth political gain? 0:09:54.720 --> 0:09:58.400 Jenna certainly did not call for violence, but there is 0:09:58.440 --> 0:10:01.720 a certain sense in which, of course, even though the 0:10:01.800 --> 0:10:06.600 evidence I've seen suggests that the Muslims in Calcutta probably 0:10:06.760 --> 0:10:10.920 suffered higher casualties than Hindus did, but largely because the 0:10:11.000 --> 0:10:15.960 Muslim population was generally poor and less able to defend itself. 0:10:16.480 --> 0:10:21.040 But you know, the riot itself, no doubt, did make 0:10:21.200 --> 0:10:24.920 clear on a national stage that the question of coercing 0:10:25.040 --> 0:10:31.000 Muslims into any kind of arrangement that didn't take account 0:10:31.559 --> 0:10:34.960 of the Muslim demand for Pakistan was going to be 0:10:35.000 --> 0:10:39.480 a very difficult proposition, and that message actually got across, 0:10:39.760 --> 0:10:44.040 I mean, to both Congress and to the British. So 0:10:44.160 --> 0:10:47.800 I mean, in that sense one could say this did 0:10:47.960 --> 0:10:54.439 to a certain degree served part of Jenna's purposes. Now 0:10:54.720 --> 0:11:00.520 for the British, the British governor was very wary of 0:11:00.960 --> 0:11:06.319 trying to bring the British in and to cut out 0:11:06.520 --> 0:11:10.240 the elected Chief Minister of the province at this particular time, 0:11:10.280 --> 0:11:13.640 which would have brought the British in for huge criticism, 0:11:13.679 --> 0:11:16.280 and a lot of the British actions throughout this whole 0:11:16.440 --> 0:11:21.439 period leading up to partition one can explain by efforts 0:11:21.480 --> 0:11:25.360 of the British to avoid getting blamed for, you know, 0:11:26.040 --> 0:11:28.760 having been the cause of what happened, though of course 0:11:28.800 --> 0:11:32.800 they have been blamed, but nevertheless, you know, the idea 0:11:32.840 --> 0:11:37.360 was that they wanted to create the position, the image 0:11:37.440 --> 0:11:40.960 that this is something that different Indian groups need to 0:11:41.040 --> 0:11:44.520 work out. They're the ones who are responsible for partition. 0:11:45.200 --> 0:11:47.560 We are kind of above the fray. This is the 0:11:47.720 --> 0:11:51.960 standard kind of British argument they used to justify that 0:11:52.080 --> 0:11:58.360 they didn't in fact maintain order above the fray. The 0:11:58.440 --> 0:12:02.319 British who made the decision to colonize us and desecrated 0:12:02.360 --> 0:12:11.040 India and its economy basically said, this is above our paygrade. Certainly, 0:12:11.240 --> 0:12:14.680 there's plenty one can say about the role of British 0:12:14.840 --> 0:12:17.679 in this whole operation, which is not to say the 0:12:17.720 --> 0:12:21.080 British weren't in a somewhat difficult situation. But on the 0:12:21.080 --> 0:12:24.360 other hand, you know, they were in charge, you know, 0:12:24.920 --> 0:12:27.320 I mean who else was there too? I mean This 0:12:27.440 --> 0:12:30.559 is like this example that I was just gimming about 0:12:30.640 --> 0:12:34.600 what happened on direct Action Day and what followed, and 0:12:35.080 --> 0:12:39.880 you know, the the politicians, people like Sara Worthy, were 0:12:40.000 --> 0:12:43.600 under huge pressures and they did have their own agendas. 0:12:44.080 --> 0:12:47.400 But yet at the same time, you know, even if 0:12:47.440 --> 0:12:53.080 they were committed to a trying to control violence, they 0:12:53.120 --> 0:12:55.880 didn't have the means to do it that the British did. 0:12:58.080 --> 0:13:02.120 Accountability this is a characteristic that seems to be lacking 0:13:02.280 --> 0:13:05.839 throughout many of the issues that arose before and after 0:13:05.880 --> 0:13:09.920 a partition. No one wants to claim responsibility. It's like 0:13:09.960 --> 0:13:12.600 when you see something amiss when you're walking and you 0:13:12.679 --> 0:13:15.520 don't know if help is on the way. Most people 0:13:15.559 --> 0:13:18.120 assume the problem is being taken care of and go 0:13:18.240 --> 0:13:22.080 about their day. David said it himself. The lack of 0:13:22.120 --> 0:13:25.280 confronting the violence from all sides was due to the 0:13:25.320 --> 0:13:28.240 fact that there was confusion of who exactly was in 0:13:28.320 --> 0:13:32.120 charge at the time. There wasn't this idea of see something, 0:13:32.320 --> 0:13:36.199 say something. Direct Action day to me comes off as 0:13:36.240 --> 0:13:39.680 a fur the greater good argument that the destruction was 0:13:39.720 --> 0:13:42.679 a small price to pay in order to ensure that 0:13:42.720 --> 0:13:45.839 the politicians got the chance to get what they want. 0:14:11.800 --> 0:14:14.800 On February, the Prime Minister of Britain at the time, 0:14:14.920 --> 0:14:17.680 Clement at Lee, made a statement that the British would 0:14:17.720 --> 0:14:21.480 leave India by June of but as we all know, 0:14:21.840 --> 0:14:26.120 that is not what happened. Like many characteristics of partition, 0:14:26.360 --> 0:14:31.239 we cannot pinpoint in exact reason why the date became August, 0:14:32.040 --> 0:14:36.280 almost an entire year earlier than expected. Was an ongoing 0:14:36.360 --> 0:14:43.280 unrest in patience, greed, and honestly probably is a combination 0:14:43.320 --> 0:14:47.120 of all these things and more. Here is another excerpt 0:14:47.320 --> 0:14:54.480 from Midnight's Furies. Mystery and misinformation still cloud the most 0:14:54.520 --> 0:14:59.200 pivotal decision in the partition process, to rush forward the 0:14:59.320 --> 0:15:03.840 date of the British departure by ten months. Mount Batten 0:15:04.000 --> 0:15:07.120 is typically blamed for the acceleration of the handover so 0:15:07.240 --> 0:15:10.080 the British would not be held responsible for the blood 0:15:10.080 --> 0:15:15.520 bath to come. Mountbatten did himself no favors by boasting 0:15:15.600 --> 0:15:18.400 in later years that he had plucked the date out 0:15:18.440 --> 0:15:22.480 of thin air at a press conference, choosing the anniversary 0:15:22.560 --> 0:15:26.240 of the Japanese surrender, simply because it's sprang to mind. 0:15:27.440 --> 0:15:31.080 If that were true, hundreds of thousands of dead and 0:15:31.200 --> 0:15:35.320 millions of displaced Pakistani's and Indians would indeed have been 0:15:35.440 --> 0:15:42.760 victims of one man's whimsical addicted You all may remember 0:15:42.800 --> 0:15:46.480 from last week that Lord Mountbatten was a royal representative 0:15:46.720 --> 0:15:50.680 whose job it was to oversee the separation of India. 0:15:51.800 --> 0:15:57.720 What a gentleman. On July, the British Parliament passed the 0:15:57.760 --> 0:16:01.040 Indian Independence Bill. The bill was made up of several 0:16:01.080 --> 0:16:04.360 committees to deal with different aspects of partition for the British. 0:16:04.880 --> 0:16:09.600 Some included assets and liabilities, economic relations, and armed forces. 0:16:10.560 --> 0:16:12.920 Care to guess how many committees were created to help 0:16:12.960 --> 0:16:16.200 the people of India and Pakistan. If you guessed zero, 0:16:16.600 --> 0:16:20.680 you would be correct. Politicians took a very lazy, fair approach, 0:16:21.360 --> 0:16:25.360 after all, what could go wrong? You've heard me say 0:16:25.400 --> 0:16:28.640 that June three was the date independence was announced, but 0:16:28.720 --> 0:16:32.520 how many people actually found out on this day? Remember 0:16:32.560 --> 0:16:36.000 this was the nineties. People were not getting news alerts 0:16:36.000 --> 0:16:39.800 and push notifications on their smartphones. While this information was 0:16:39.840 --> 0:16:42.800 on the radio and in the papers. The vast majority 0:16:42.800 --> 0:16:45.960 of residents lived in quiet, rural areas where this vital 0:16:46.000 --> 0:16:49.560 intel did not reach them. For weeks, the British hardly 0:16:49.560 --> 0:16:51.960 went door to door giving denizens an f y I. 0:16:55.920 --> 0:16:59.360 So how exactly was India going to be separated in 0:16:59.400 --> 0:17:02.760 a new country formed? Mount Batton and his team brought 0:17:02.760 --> 0:17:07.320 in a man named Cyril Radcliffe, a lawyer. Radcliffe was 0:17:07.359 --> 0:17:11.080 literally chosen because he had absolutely no knowledge of what 0:17:11.119 --> 0:17:14.520 was happening in India. According to the British, this would 0:17:14.520 --> 0:17:17.199 allow him to do the job without a bias. To 0:17:17.280 --> 0:17:20.720 add insult to injury, Radcliffe had never been to India before. 0:17:21.320 --> 0:17:23.760 Do you think he bothered to visit the communities that 0:17:23.760 --> 0:17:27.240 would soon be split up? He didn't. Do you think 0:17:27.280 --> 0:17:31.520 he asked the United Nations for guidance? He didn't. The 0:17:31.680 --> 0:17:34.760 United Nations was deliberately left out of the conversation to 0:17:34.800 --> 0:17:38.199 avoid any delays. Did he make sure that all of 0:17:38.200 --> 0:17:40.399 the information and plans he had for the country were 0:17:40.480 --> 0:17:45.720 updated and accurate. He didn't. No map specialists or geography 0:17:45.760 --> 0:17:50.359 professionals were involved in the making of this decision. Radcliffe 0:17:50.400 --> 0:17:54.159 created these new territories in five weeks. The fate of 0:17:54.280 --> 0:17:56.880 millions of people was left up to a man who 0:17:56.920 --> 0:18:03.600 threw together a plan in five weeks. He left right 0:18:03.640 --> 0:18:06.879 after his task was complete, burning all of the documents 0:18:06.880 --> 0:18:12.240 before he left, or more truthfully, fled. Radcliffe wrote the 0:18:12.280 --> 0:18:16.439 following to his nephew, Nobody in India would love me 0:18:16.560 --> 0:18:19.720 for the award about the Punjab and Bengal, and there 0:18:19.760 --> 0:18:22.840 will be roughly eighty million people, with their grievance who 0:18:22.840 --> 0:18:26.080 will begin looking for me. I do not want them 0:18:26.080 --> 0:18:30.600 to find me. As Rackcliffe understood it, people were going 0:18:30.640 --> 0:18:33.600 to suffer no matter what. How nice to know we 0:18:33.600 --> 0:18:37.800 were nothing more than collateral damage. Rackcliffe ended up not 0:18:37.880 --> 0:18:41.399 accepting his fee for the job, hardly an atonement for 0:18:41.520 --> 0:18:45.560 his sin. Naturally, when we're turning back to Britain, he 0:18:45.680 --> 0:18:48.399 received one of the highest honors from the Queen the 0:18:48.560 --> 0:18:54.520 night of the Grand Cross. You may recall my grandfather 0:18:54.680 --> 0:18:57.119 talking about how he celebrated on the street as a 0:18:57.119 --> 0:19:01.919 teenager when independence was granted. However, the celebration and excitement 0:19:02.080 --> 0:19:04.760 was short lived because even though the British have left, 0:19:04.960 --> 0:19:07.560 the official boundary lines have yet to be made public. 0:19:08.240 --> 0:19:11.880 No one knew what land now belonged to what country. Remember, 0:19:12.040 --> 0:19:16.040 this announcement came out on auguste The borderline cuts through 0:19:16.080 --> 0:19:19.159 Bengal in the east and Punjab in the west. And 0:19:19.200 --> 0:19:23.000 because Radcliffe made his decision on religious grounds, Muslims found 0:19:23.000 --> 0:19:26.000 themselves on the Hindu side, and Hindus found themselves on 0:19:26.000 --> 0:19:30.879 the Muslim side. Suddenly, even without moving, people were on 0:19:30.920 --> 0:19:34.359 the wrong side of the border, and just like that, 0:19:34.480 --> 0:19:38.880 we were in a state of genocide. A passage from 0:19:38.960 --> 0:19:44.240 Yasmine Khan's The Great Partition states a whole village might 0:19:44.320 --> 0:19:48.560 be hacked to death with blunt farm instruments, or imprisoned 0:19:48.560 --> 0:19:52.320 in a barn and burned alive, or shot against walls 0:19:52.359 --> 0:19:57.720 by impromptu firing squads using machine guns. Children, the elderly, 0:19:58.160 --> 0:20:02.320 and the sick were not spared, and ritual humiliation and 0:20:02.440 --> 0:20:07.240 conversions from one faith to another occurred alongside systemic looting 0:20:07.560 --> 0:20:11.840 and robbery, clearly carried out with the intention of ruining lives. 0:20:12.440 --> 0:20:15.040 It seems that the aim was not only to kill, 0:20:15.520 --> 0:20:21.520 but to break people over and over again. I think 0:20:21.520 --> 0:20:24.919 about these horrific facts and stories. These are stories that 0:20:24.960 --> 0:20:27.720 determined much of my life, but not once did this 0:20:27.800 --> 0:20:31.399 information come to play in my pre college education. I 0:20:31.440 --> 0:20:34.920 graduated high school in two thousand eight, fourteen years ago. 0:20:35.480 --> 0:20:37.879 I was curious to find out if others had similar 0:20:37.880 --> 0:20:41.040 experiences to me, or by some miracle, this history hasn't 0:20:41.040 --> 0:20:45.000 been erased from textbooks. My alma mater, the University of 0:20:45.040 --> 0:20:47.160 Texas at Austin, is home to one of the most 0:20:47.160 --> 0:20:51.119 distinguished South Asian programs in the country. I interviewed two 0:20:51.160 --> 0:20:54.600 different students from UT, both of whom took an entire 0:20:54.640 --> 0:20:58.240 course devoted to partition top by professor in any chater 0:20:58.359 --> 0:21:01.280 g Did either of them know about it before taking 0:21:01.320 --> 0:21:07.600 this class? Here's what they had to say. I didn't 0:21:07.640 --> 0:21:13.879 know basically anything about partition before the class. That's Christine. 0:21:14.960 --> 0:21:20.080 I just found the way the professor just made the 0:21:20.119 --> 0:21:23.280 past come alive and really like reinforced the idea, like 0:21:23.320 --> 0:21:26.480 that the past isn't even past. Um That made me 0:21:26.520 --> 0:21:30.840 want to take more classes. Christine observed that while some 0:21:30.880 --> 0:21:34.080 students were in this class to fulfilling requirement, others were 0:21:34.080 --> 0:21:37.520 there for a very different reason. So I was one 0:21:37.680 --> 0:21:41.240 of a handful of nonsalth Asian students in the class. 0:21:41.760 --> 0:21:44.480 So at the beginning she was like, why are you here, 0:21:45.200 --> 0:21:47.240 like asking people, and a lot of people were there 0:21:47.280 --> 0:21:49.560 because they had never taken history classes before. They weren't 0:21:49.560 --> 0:21:52.760 even liberal arts majors. They were just wanting to explore 0:21:53.040 --> 0:21:57.159 family history or learn more about their heritage. And I 0:21:57.280 --> 0:22:00.639 was like I'm just taking a history class. I felt 0:22:00.760 --> 0:22:03.520 sort of like I was really missing something I didn't know. 0:22:03.760 --> 0:22:06.040 I guess what the big deal at the time was, 0:22:06.080 --> 0:22:08.600 because yes, my understanding and this is from like high 0:22:08.640 --> 0:22:12.879 school history classes of partition was just kind of a 0:22:13.000 --> 0:22:18.760 natural process of the independence movement and like a byproduct 0:22:19.119 --> 0:22:23.159 of getting rid of British colonial rule was that these 0:22:23.280 --> 0:22:27.120 two states had to form like it was almost inevitable, 0:22:27.560 --> 0:22:31.760 which was something that was completely broken down in UM 0:22:32.200 --> 0:22:35.800 the class. And one thing I come away with UM 0:22:35.960 --> 0:22:38.480 is that it was definitely not inevitable and it was 0:22:38.960 --> 0:22:44.080 a huge product of the British Rutha is a South 0:22:44.119 --> 0:22:47.280 Asian like myself. She also immigrated to the United States 0:22:47.280 --> 0:22:49.639 as a baby, so I was especially keen to know 0:22:49.720 --> 0:22:54.359 if our experiences mirrored my own. My family didn't talk 0:22:54.400 --> 0:22:58.439 about partition much, so are at all like the sentiment was, 0:22:58.520 --> 0:23:01.720 you know, Pakistan an idea at one point where the 0:23:01.760 --> 0:23:05.280 same country and then they split and now there's you know, 0:23:05.359 --> 0:23:08.720 animosities one against the other. For me, it was just 0:23:08.800 --> 0:23:12.160 kind of like this accepted thing that had happened. There 0:23:12.200 --> 0:23:14.439 was no debate about if it was the right or 0:23:14.480 --> 0:23:17.439 wrong thing to do. There was no Um, there was. 0:23:17.560 --> 0:23:20.480 There just wasn't much like critical thought put towards it. 0:23:20.920 --> 0:23:24.720 And I think what I learned in class was this 0:23:24.800 --> 0:23:28.320 is a shared experience that people part of our generation 0:23:28.400 --> 0:23:31.280 think have and it's because that history is really painful. 0:23:31.800 --> 0:23:36.920 A lot of people's relatives experienced it firsthand and they 0:23:37.040 --> 0:23:41.000 can speak to how it was more of an atrocity 0:23:41.040 --> 0:23:45.600 than you know, the political gain. She recalls her first 0:23:45.600 --> 0:23:49.119 time finding out about partition as a teenager. It was 0:23:49.680 --> 0:23:54.160 actually kind of funny. Um, in my ninth grade World 0:23:54.200 --> 0:23:58.399 Geography class, we talked about partition for I think like 0:23:58.640 --> 0:24:00.800 a few lessons. It was like two were three lessons, 0:24:01.280 --> 0:24:04.600 and um, the way it was talked about was so 0:24:05.280 --> 0:24:09.760 surface level tangential. And now looking back on it after 0:24:09.840 --> 0:24:12.719 taking the classes that I have, it's almost offensive the 0:24:12.720 --> 0:24:15.200 way that it was taught, Like, you know, they were 0:24:15.240 --> 0:24:17.000 just they were just like, yeah, God, he was this 0:24:17.160 --> 0:24:20.119 wonderful person who did so much great work to bring 0:24:20.200 --> 0:24:23.880 peace to South Asia. And I just think about it now, 0:24:23.880 --> 0:24:28.320 like as if that was a big joke. If you 0:24:28.359 --> 0:24:31.560 remember from last week's episode, learning about Gandhi was also 0:24:31.640 --> 0:24:34.760 the only aspect associated with partition I was taught as well. 0:24:35.720 --> 0:24:41.359 Dr Gunita Singhbala, founder of the Oral History Project Partition Archive, 0:24:41.720 --> 0:24:44.480 mentioned her education or lack there of, on this topic. 0:24:47.680 --> 0:24:50.680 When we were children, the history that we were learning 0:24:50.720 --> 0:24:55.879 in school, the official history was so disconnected from folk history, 0:24:55.920 --> 0:24:57.800 and not just the history, even the news, like what 0:24:57.880 --> 0:25:00.640 we would hear on National team me at the time, 0:25:00.680 --> 0:25:02.679 there was only you know, one channel in India and 0:25:02.880 --> 0:25:05.480 Pakistan as well at the time, the Indian channel was 0:25:05.520 --> 0:25:09.240 called Dooders and um the news we would hear about 0:25:09.240 --> 0:25:11.520 the job versus what we were seeing. There was such 0:25:11.520 --> 0:25:15.160 a disconnect. And similarly in history, the folk history that 0:25:15.480 --> 0:25:20.280 our grandparents and our communities carried and told through folklore 0:25:20.920 --> 0:25:23.720 versus um you know what we lived in school, I 0:25:23.800 --> 0:25:26.320 always knew that that gap needed rebridged and that would 0:25:26.320 --> 0:25:29.119 solve a lot of the misunderstandings, a lot of the 0:25:29.160 --> 0:25:31.639 problems we were having, a lot of the conflict that 0:25:31.680 --> 0:25:35.919 resulted in real lives lost. So that thought was in 0:25:35.920 --> 0:25:37.560 the back of my mind for a very long time. 0:25:37.880 --> 0:25:42.800 Fast forward to high school. Um, I learned about, you know, 0:25:43.000 --> 0:25:47.840 the independence movement in India and how India freedom uh 0:25:47.920 --> 0:25:52.520 India and Pakistan and you know, the it was like 0:25:52.560 --> 0:25:54.920 a one liner in our two books. Basically, Gandhi walked 0:25:54.920 --> 0:25:57.000 to peaceful march the British left and it was like 0:25:57.080 --> 0:25:59.720 a peaceful trance for a power and I was like, well, 0:26:00.160 --> 0:26:05.320 that's just not what I heard growing up. Here's David 0:26:05.320 --> 0:26:12.600 again with his experience as an educator. Mostly the students 0:26:13.119 --> 0:26:17.520 know very little about partition. Some I've never heard of it. 0:26:18.200 --> 0:26:22.320 Others sort of say, oh, yeah, there was something in 0:26:22.440 --> 0:26:25.920 a school textbook about that, but you know, they can't 0:26:26.000 --> 0:26:29.359 remember very much. But but of course other students know 0:26:29.520 --> 0:26:32.840 much more about it, and particularly students who you know, 0:26:32.880 --> 0:26:36.840 as you've been describing, have some family connections to partition, 0:26:37.280 --> 0:26:42.880 and you know, their grandparents were involved in some way 0:26:43.000 --> 0:26:48.680 or they've heard about it, and so they don't know 0:26:49.240 --> 0:26:52.600 all of the details, but they do have real questions 0:26:52.760 --> 0:26:55.240 tied to it, which puts them in a somewhat different 0:26:55.320 --> 0:27:00.399 perspective from the other students. So yeah, I mean, among 0:27:00.480 --> 0:27:03.320 the students who hadn't sort of heard at all about 0:27:03.400 --> 0:27:06.960 partition before, some get really quite interested, you know, and 0:27:07.359 --> 0:27:11.720 people of course are always amazed to discover important things 0:27:11.720 --> 0:27:22.399 in history that they ever heard of. You know. We 0:27:22.560 --> 0:27:24.959 talked about the people whose lives are affected by this 0:27:25.040 --> 0:27:27.800 event in a general sense, but for the next two 0:27:27.840 --> 0:27:31.560 episodes I will specifically talk about women and their treatment. 0:27:31.640 --> 0:27:35.439 During Partition, I spoke to our survivor who wrote a 0:27:35.480 --> 0:27:38.080 book as a way to cope with her trauma and 0:27:38.200 --> 0:27:41.359 use the women in her life as inspiration for her characters. 0:27:44.160 --> 0:27:48.520