Partition of India Quotes

“Noakhali riots”

“Jogendra Nath Mandal”

“Violence against women during the partition of India”

“There is no doubt that the creation of Pakistan was the triumph of violence...”

“At Mansera and some other places (N.W.F.P.) there are regular camps where Hindu girls are being sold.”

“Wikipedia: Partition of India”

“If all the Punjabis were to die to the last man without killing, Punjab will be immortal. ... Offer yourselves as non-violent, willing sacrifices.”

“But history moves in strange ways, and yesterday's disaster may be today's blessing. For Hinduism as such, Partition has by now proved to be a blessing in disguise, a last chance to survive.”

“It is Muslim Raj now. Pakistan has been created. We are the rulers and Hindus ryot (peasants). The Sikhs will have to fly the Pakistan flag… and pay them land revenues (kharaj) and other dues.”

“It is highly doubtful if Hindu society would have been able to prevent Partition even if there had been no Mahatma Gandhi. On the other hand, there is ample evidence that Hindu society would have failed in any case.”

“Most of the male refugees were butchered or shot dead. The women were sorted. The elderly ones were later butchered, while the younger ones were distributed. Children were murdered by being flung with force on the ground.”

“Sardar Abdur Rab Nishtar, now a member of the Pakistan Government, declared: “Pakistan can only be achieved through shedding blood of ourselves, and if need be, and if opportunity arose, by shedding blood of others. Muslims are no believers in Ahimsa.””

““You have been earmarked to quit Pakistan at your earliest possible. If you don’t follow this warning, none but you yourself will be responsible for the consequences. Public don’t want you to be here as fifth columnist and it would be unwise on your part to seek for Government protection which would be of no use at this stage.”

“It is quite true that partition far from proving to be a solution to the Muslim problem has only aggravated it. But it is simply not true that there was a happy solution waiting round the corner only if partition had been avoided. For the Muslims demanded parity as the price for remaining in a politically united India and surely this was an impossible demand.”

“One ought not to forget that the terrible war of 1947 in India between the Muslims and Hindus was fought on a purely religious basis. More than one million people died and since massacres had not taken place when the Muslims had lived within the Hindu-Buddhist orbit, one may presume that the war was caused by the attempt to set up an independent Islamic republic.”

“The creation of India and Pakistan were pyrrhic victories for their denizens because the political, socioeconomic, psychological, and culture havoc wreaked by that momentous event is reflected in those pogroms, ethnic cleansing, proliferation of nuclear weapons, poverty, and riots that continue to cause seismic tremors in the Indian subcontinent.”

“During the months of September and October, 1947 the roads leading from West Punjab into India revealed one unending, melancholy procession, day after day, of Sikh men, women, children and cattle, all fatigued and hungry, as they trekked into India, some with their few salvaged belongings in carts and others on foot. These begrimed and harassed Sikhs were those driven out of Lyallpur by systematic and designed Pakistan terror.”

“India whose ancient borders stretched until Afghanistan, lost with the country of seven rivers (the Indus Valley), the historical center of her civilization. At a time when the Muslim invaders seemed to have lost some of their extremism and were ready to assimilate themselves to other populations of India, the European (British) conquerors, before returning home, surrendered once more to Muslim fanaticism the cradle of Hindu civilization.”

“Shortly after the failure of the Cripps Mission, Gandhi effectively conceded Partition even in front of his own support base. Writing in his own paper, he mused, ‘If the vast majority of Muslims regard themselves as a separate nation having nothing in common with the Hindus and others, no power on earth can compel them to think otherwise. And if they want to partition India on that basis, they must have the partition, unless Hindus want to fight against such a division.’”

“Muslim Magistrates assisted by Muslim police officials… lent their support and connivance to the miscreants..... [When a senior Sikh Advocate asked the Magistrate for police assistance] the Additional District Magistrate accused him of spreading rumors and added that he was endangering his own life.... While the Government of India and the East Punjab Government mobilized all their resources to quell the disturbances, the West Punjab Government gave encouragement to the rowdy elements by many official and unofficial acts.”