Hi everyone
There was something very intriguing which i discovered recently. I saw something in a movie and i was really provoked by the nature of reality which they showed. I wanted to know the truth. The movie name is "Viceroy's House".
There is something shown in it. While Mount Batten was appointed for the role of partition sent by British government. Meanwhile, Radcliffe was sent for performing the actual partition by defining the boundary line between the two countries. While he was doing it, he resisted and felt nauseated by the idea of surmounting him to draw the boundary between Pakistan and India. At that moment, he was presented by a report which was approved by Churchill, in which the plan was already discussed (2yrs prior to partition) and a map was also in the report pertaining the boundary line. Radcliffe was so much stunned with this that he presented the report to Batten, to keep him aware of the already decided plan upon which he was sent to surpass.

My question is, how much this is true in regards with the actual history? We were never taught this dirt of history and we were only given inception that it ended well, so it is well. But there is a question buried down in the dusted chapters of history. This very question, made me think repeatedly that if something like that happened in the history, it is such a delusional and volcanic event that was either kept silent or was wrong.
I want to know the actual reality and if someone knows about this w.r.t. history, please guide me in accordance.

First of all, it is just a movie. They add such stuff to add some sensation in the movie.

Secondly, the history we are taught in school isn't necessarily true. We are only taught what has been approved to be passed to the coming generations. If we teach our kids that the 65 war started because India invaded lahore, do you think kids in India are told the 65 war started because of India's unprovoked aggression?

Same is the case with Kashmir. They call it Pak occupied Kashmir, we call it azad kashmir. The world calls it disupted territory.

The point is, you shouldn't really trust anyone's writing about history. Just read it for the exam's sake and get done with it. If the boundaries had been determined years before partition, what's wrong with that? They owned the region and had the right to do what they wanted. It is a norm in politics that decisions are made and then executed in a controlled manner to ease the transition and keep the public reaction in check.

To me, There are lot of controversies in the partition which the British made deliberately. Here are they :


*** British agreed to partition the Muslim majority provinces, like Bengal & Punjab. But they didn't partitioned the provinces where Hindus were in Majority, like UP & Bihar. Where the muslims were crushed by over-whelming Hindu Majority. Just like they partiioned Bengal into Muslim Bengal & Hindu Bengal, just like they partitioned Punjab into Muslim Punjab & Sikh Hindu Punjab... Why didn't they partitioned UP into "Muslim UP" and Hindu UP ??? ... Why didn't they partition Bihar into Muslim Bihar and Hindu Bihar ???? ... Hence the muslims of these two provinces were utterly massacred by the Hindu majority as a punishment of voting in over-whelming numbers to Quaid e Azam and All India Muslim League.

*** A corridor (mughalistan concept) could have been easily established comprising the muslim majority areas of UP (like Aligarh, Luchnow Muradabad Meeruth etc etc) upto East Pakistan to link up the East Pakistan & West Pakistan...

*** Cities like Gurdaspur & Ferozpur in East Punjab had muslim majority but awarded to India ... Similarly, cities like Calcutta, Dinajpur, Howra & Murshidabad in West Bengal had muslim majority but was awarded to India...

*** Many cities in UP had muslim majority, but was awarded to India, such as Luchnow, Aligarh, Muradabad, Meeruth, Amroha, Badayun, Muzaffarnagar, Saharanpur, Firozabad, Sambhal.

Dear both India & Pakistan are far away from the "actual truth". Because they were being told or taught whatever suits the Establishment or political arena of both countries.

In 1965 war, Pakistan started intruded into Occupied Kashmir, but India caught them and as Pakistan Army regulars. Indian Forces got trapped in Occupied Kashmir and Operation Gibralter was turning out to be successful initially. Indian & Pakistani forces were fully fighting each other all across Jammu & Kashmir border (CFL). India was about to loose the occupied territory and the war in Kashmir was not going in their favor. Thus, they had no option but to attack on international borders, so that Pakistan had to divert some forces from kashmir to protect its cities and mainland across international border. As a counter-attack, india attacked on International border along Wagha and Lahore front, and Pakistan moved most of the troops from Kashmir to defend international borders all across Sindh & Punjab. Such retaliation / counter-attack was not expected by Pakistan's Higher Military Command (GHQ) and the attack on Lahore on the night of 5/6 September surprised them. It was utter mis-calulation by the Military elite. However, they succesfully defended Urban areas which were close to the border, like Lahore, Kasur, Sialkot, Fort Abbas, Umerkot and Tharparkar.

Indian Military were on the back-foot in Kashmir was about to be defeated, because local kashmiris were also against them, the India Military had no other option but to bring this war all along international border, so that pakistan will have to save its mainland, rather then keep fighting inside Occupied Kashmir.

At that time, Pakistan was superior in terms of weapons & technology but Indian forces had numerica superiority. So the used their numerical superiority to save their total defeat in Occupied Kashmir or Disputed Kashmir.

I am assuming when these things were being decided, there was sufficient representation of the Muslims in the decision making process.

Is it possible that there were Hindu majority cities which are now part of Pakistan?(Are you sure there aren't any?)

I am sure the question came up at the time of partition and there was adequate discussion on it. It is also possible that they thought it was not a big deal for the Muslims in Ferozpur to move to pakistan as the distance to the border is only 10km. Hence, they concentrated their efforts on more pressing matters.

There is another way to think about it. For the English, it was simply a question of what was to be 'taken' by the Muslims and what 'remained' in India. Pakistan was the new country so to say, not India. Pakistan was to be carved out of India and for something to be a part of Pakistan, there had to be overwhelming support for that. If there wasn't, the region did not 'go' to India but 'remained' a part of it. It is possible that the Indians themselves put forward the argument that since the people of Ferozpur are so close to the potential boundary, why don't they simply move? Pakistan could well have used the same argument to get cities in Sindh where I am sure there were more Hindu majority regions(most of the Hindus in Pakistan today reside in Sindh)

I fail to understand why people blame the British of doing things deliberately. If they wanted people in the region to fight, they would have simple left and let the people fight it out. If they had done that, we might well have had separate countries for the Sikhs too and much more bloodshed. I also fail to see how Pakistan would have come into being in that scenario as most of the tools of the State were in India's control and they would have crushed the Muslims using State power.

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'You only live twice. Once when you're born and once when you look death in the face'

Dear it's only about Ferozpur or Punjab only. My points is, that if they (the Britishers) were partitioning India on religious lines, why did they only partitioned those provinces, where muslims were in majority & hindus were in minority (bengal, punjab), Why they didn't partition the Hindu majority provinces. AIML (all india muslim league) swept the elections in UP, Bihar, and other muslim minority provinces. UP had huge muslim population with lot of cities where muslims were in clear majority.

Britishers could have easily divided UP and Bihar similar to the method of punjab and bengal. But they awarded the whole UP and Bihar to india. In the result, the muslims of these two states were brutally killed by dominating hindus, many of them were killed while being enroute to Pakistan, few of them took shelter to their local hindu friends to survive for another day, few of them relocated themselves within india to such areas where the situation was relatively peaceful, like MP, Bombay, Madras, Rajasthan etc etc.

Imagine if Gurdaspur (of east punjab) could have awarded to Pakistan, then strategically how difficult it would have been for India, to supply its Army in Occupied Kashmir. Remember that Sikhs and Hindus utterly massacred the muslim population of Gurdaspur & Ferozpur.