Midnight’s Grandchildren: How Indian Teens Remember the Partition

On August 15, 1947, Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru said, “At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom.” He spoke famously of the nation meeting its “tryst with destiny.” Millions, however, were about to meet their tryst with tragedy. The night had just begun, a night that would consume their loved ones and plunge the nation into darkness. For even as India gained liberation, it was riven in two, and a curse was cast upon the country. As historian John Keay writes, “In the land of the five rivers, the waters ran with blood, and the roads ran with mangled migrants.”

The Partition between India and Pakistan marred the lives of millions for decades after the event. It left a legacy of communal tensions that endures today — in the last five years, there have been almost 3,000 incidents of communal violence. The trauma it caused lingers even today; the horrors of the Partition haunt many children and grandchildren of those involved in it. A study by the University of Delhi published in Psychological Studies found a “notable level of intergenerational trauma” even among the grandchildren of those who experienced the Partition.

I have grown up hearing stories of the Partition — how my grandfather, just 11 years old at the time, immigrated from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), taking refuge under the seats of trains while the world around him was enveloped in an insatiable bloodlust. The trauma of that event stayed with him for life, and the memory of it has passed down through the generations. When I look at it as a historical event, the Partition feels distant, appalling and incomprehensible, but when I consider my personal connection to it, it feels much more real — something that threatened to consume the world of my grandfather as a child, something that profoundly shaped his life and my family’s.

As a keen high school student of history, I researched more about the Partition, wondering about the millions of teens my age who have a similar personal connection to the event. I was sure they felt its dark shadow in some way, like I did, and my research seemed to corroborate this.

However, I was unsure about how aware they were of the event from a historical perspective. How do today’s teenagers, many of whom are caught up in an age of affluence and optimism, remember the Partition? To what extent do they remember the truth behind what caused it? How well equipped are they with the lessons of the Partition to avoid repeating past mistakes?

A historical background to the Partition

Many people in India, when asked about what caused the Partition, will answer quickly, saying “communal tensions,” or the British “divide and rule” policy, or the Muslim League. But the issue was far more complex, formed by many forces building up to create the primal hatred that exploded in an inferno that blazed across the nation.

It happened when the British, having ruled India for almost two hundred years, left in 1947. They were compelled to do so by the 1942 Quit India Movement, economic burdens of World War II and the uprisings in the navy and army in 1945. For years, organizations like the Muslim League that represented “communal interests” had pushed for a Partition of India into a new state called Pakistan (Muslim-majority) and a diminished India (Hindu-majority). They had argued that Hindus and Muslims could not live together in peace and that Muslim interests would not be safeguarded in a united India. Thus, when the British Mountbatten Plan granted India independence, it also finalized the Partition.

However, the Muslim League had long been concocting the conditions for this official recognition. It started as an organization that pushed for “Muslim communal interests” as communalism, an ideology placing “communal” (religious, caste-based, regional or ethnic) identity over national identity, rose. The rise of Muslim communalism was fueled by fears that Muslims were being marginalized and oppressed by the Hindu majority. These fears were partly born from socioeconomic disparities under British rule — Anantdeep Singh of the University of Southern California writes of the “divergence of the economic fortunes of Muslims and Hindus” in British India. They wcoere also fed by the relative lack of inclusion of Muslims in the Indian National Congress (INC), the mainstream nationalist party in India led by luminaries like Mahatma Gandhi and Nehru. The British, who encouraged communal division to strengthen their rule over India, greatly supported the Muslim League’s cause.

By the 1930s, there was a push led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah for the separate nation of Pakistan based on the belief that Muslim interests could not be protected in a united India. Jinnah, a monumental figure who has become synonymous with the Partition, advocated for the “Two-Nation theory,” arguing for the division of India into two and the formation of Pakistan. Once a member of the INC, Jinnah was embittered by how he had been sidelined by the INC and how he believed Muslims were being trivialized and excluded. He was particularly put off by the INC’s actions during the Khilafat Movement of 1919, a movement protesting the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the deposition of the Caliph, the religious leader of Islam, after World War I. The INC supported this aggressively, but it seemed to Jinnah as if they were attempting to win over the Muslims and were thus trivializing Muslim issues with their furor. When he spoke out, he was not heard then or later — in a party with greats like Gandhi and Nehru, challenging the status quo was uncommon.

With a bruised ego and fears for the future of Muslims in India, he left the INC and soon went on a quest for a separate country. By 1940, 90% of Muslims had joined the Muslim League; many united in their vision of a divided India that they thought was necessary for the safeguarding of their “communal interests.” Eventually, Jinnah would become the first Governor-General of the new nation of Pakistan.

Even so, there may have been an opportunity to include Jinnah in an independent India and prevent the Partition. Just before independence, Gandhi, fearful of the nation splitting, proposed that Jinnah be made prime minister. However, the INC outright rejected it, perhaps, as the 14th Dalai Lama said, because of a “self-centered attitude of Pandit Nehru that he should be the Prime Minister.” Who knows what would have happened had Jinnah been prime minister? 

The INC may have failed in other ways, too. To many, it may seem preposterous that Gandhi and Nehru accepted Partition at all. But as historians Bipan Chandra et al. write in their book India’s Struggle for Independence, “Nehru, Patel, and Gandhiji … were only accepting what had become inevitable because of the long-term failure of the Congress.” This long-term failure was caused primarily by their inability to include Muslims and their neglect of the rising waves of Muslim communalism that would soon drown the vision they had of a free, united India. 

Many historians, though, trace the roots of the Partition further back to the earliest days of British rule in India. The British employed a fundamental principle of “divide and rule” by allying with certain communities and groups and pitting them against others. They did this during many events of historic significance — the Battle of Plassey, the 1857 Indian Rebellion, the 1871 Census, the 1932 Communal Award, and the 1935 Government of India Act all have this in common. Thus, they weakened their Indian opposition by fomenting division and dissent among them.

Soon, such communal thinking had seeped into the souls of millions of Indians.  Organizations like the Muslim League flourished because of its emphasis on communal fraternity within the Islamic faith. As a result, notions of a united India floundered. The British kept fanning the flame of this ideology. As Chandra et al. wrote, “While the Congress could get none of its demands accepted from 1885–1905, the Muslim communal demands were accepted … as soon as they were presented to the viceroy.” This continued through the early 20th century.

Overall, it is clear that a confluence of forces caused the Partition, drove Indians against each other, and created faultlines in the national consciousness that remain to this day.

A survey on teen perceptions of the Partition

I looked online and found few studies or surveys about how modern Indian teens think about the Partition. So, to understand their perspective — how inevitable they believe the Partition was and what factors they considered paramount — I surveyed 33 teens (between grades 9 and 12) in my school. These high school students were largely upper-caste Hindus. My survey asked them to rate four factors as the causes of the Partition:

1. The role of Muhammad Ali Jinnah and the Muslim League.
2. Underlying Hindu–Muslim tensions.
3. The policies of the British Raj.
4. The internal dynamics of the INC. 

The students had to rank each of these factors on a scale of 1 to 5. I also asked them whether they believed the Partition to be inevitable. They could reply “yes,” “no” or “unsure” to this question. I am well aware that my study is not exhaustive, but I wanted to kickstart an examination of my generation’s views on the Partition.

All 33 students gave a rating of 4 or 5 to two factors — the role of Muhammad Ali Jinnah and the Muslim League and underlying Hindu–Muslim Tensions. Another 24 rated the policies of the British Raj 4 or 5, while only four gave such a rating to the Internal dynamics of the Indian National Congress.

After the survey, I set out to answer a simple question: Does historical analysis corroborate these perceptions? The answer, like the Partition itself, is rather complex.

To begin with, today’s teens understandably and justifiably recognize the core role Jinnah and the Muslim League played. Historical analysis also shows that they were central to the conception and eventual occurrence of the Partition.

They also acknowledge the impact of divide-and-rule policies by the British in fracturing intercommunal relations. This is well documented by numerous historians.

Most respondents, however, overlooked the impact of the INC and its failure to effectively include Jinnah and Muslims. This may be attributed to the linear way history is often taught. A Manipal University study published in the Indian Journal of Sociology and Politics found that “the attempts and outlooks of Gandhi and others in the Indian National Congress are lauded,” while “the role … of Jinnah in Congress is minimally mentioned.” Indian history textbooks and curricula were drafted after India’s independence in 1947 under an INC led by Nehru. Hence, they very much reflect the views and biases of the INC, which largely ruled India from 1947 to 2014. Hence, the textbooks reflected the INC version of history with a clear, streamlined narrative, leaving out much nuance in the process.

To me, the most concerning result of my survey is the focus my fellow students gave to underlying Hindu-Muslim tensions. In a nutshell, they believe the Partition to be inevitable. They also believe the British were not creating Hindu–Muslim tensions but feeding existing ones. This perspective is generally justified by the fact that Muslims largely ruled India from the 12th to 18th centuries. The idea is that this power imbalance permanently tainted Hindu–Muslim relations, making it impossible for them to live together in peace and necessitating the Partition.

No fewer than 23 of those surveyed believe the Partition to be inevitable. Only seven believe it was not, and three of them are unsure.

My high school peers are not alone in believing in irreconcilable Hindu–Muslim differences. Most Indians believe that these differences made the Partition natural or necessary. In fact, 43% of Hindus surveyed in a 2019–2020 Pew Research study said that the Partition was a good thing for Hindu–Muslim relations. Only 30% said it was a bad thing.

However, history reveals that there were many political forces creating feelings of “communalism.” These feelings were neither natural nor inevitable. Moreover, other evidence calls into question the belief that centuries-old “underlying tensions” among the public were an important cause of the Partition. For instance, in the Stanford 1947 Partition Archive, a survey of 4,000 Partition survivors, only 5% said they were directly involved in Partition violence and that most of the violence was perpetrated by politically organized mobs, not spontaneous outbursts by ordinary people. There are numerous accounts of people caught up in a catastrophe no one really understood. Note that there are also many tales of people helping each other escape. This indicates that politicized, large mobs were at the heart of the riots, not ordinary people who had suddenly turned on their neighbors.

Why today’s teens believe the Partition was inevitable

Why, then, do so many modern teens believe the Partition was inevitable due to underlying Hindu–Muslim tensions?

Over decades, reality blurs, colored by the haze of the current political climate and divisive discourse. Today, a haze conjured from the ashes of the dead of the Partition obscures the truth, which is more nuanced than what we believe.

There is a real risk that my generation will not accurately understand the real lessons of the tragedy of the Partition and, even worse, learn the wrong lessons, which will further widen the cracks in society instead of bridging them. A study done by researcher Milounee Purohit among 70 school students in Ahmedabad showed that 40% of them remembered nothing of what was taught to them in school about the Partition, and most were not even concerned about it. In the void left by the absence of genuine knowledge, there is the risk of polarized and prejudiced views filling the vacuum.

The Partition of India is far from unique. There exist similar schisms around the world, not all political, but all similar in the way they pit cultures and peoples against each other — like the Israel–Palestine crisis, the Catholic–Protestant conflict in Northern Ireland and interracial issues in the US. 

Studying these schisms reveals the power of history. A good historical education is not only about learning facts but also about understanding why certain events transpired the way they did and what we can learn from them. The paramount lesson of my investigation is that we must be wary of leaders who champion themselves as representatives of their “communities.” We must critically question such leaders and examine their vested interests when they exploit social divisions and claim them to be inevitable. As Roman statesman and orator Marcus Tullius Cicero would say, “Cui bono?” Who benefits from all this politicking, this play? And who will pay the price?

Finally, to return to Nehru’s 1947 speech, I cannot help but think of Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children. In that book, children around midnight on August 15, 1947, have telepathic powers that allow them to know each other’s thoughts. Yet, like their forebears, they are bitterly divided by religion. It is my great hope that, with the right education, awareness and critical thinking, today’s generation of midnight’s grandchildren will finally start to heal the Partition’s scars — if not with telepathy, then at least with empathy.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Midnight’s Grandchildren: How Indian Teens Remember the Partition appeared first on Fair Observer.